What it Takes to Survive
by Tallulah Grammar Songstress
Summary: The Japanese police have been searching for the Jigsaw killer... but perhaps he's been investigating them too. Now he wants to play a game... and as more and more people are drawn into it and forced to face their failures or die, does anyone really have a chance of winning?
1. Empty Promises

(A/N: I don't own any of the characters featured in this, nor do I own the idea of Saw traps, self-mutilation or creepy puppets. I wrote a similar version of this first chapter for the now defunct dn_contest on LiveJournal and it then took on a life of its own and developed into plot. So parts of this have been posted elsewhere but the second half of it will be all-new content.

Warnings: death traps and associated dark themes and violence, and characters who may or may not survive these things.

Kind of an AU for the Saw universe in that I've gone with "what if Jigsaw were in Japan instead of the US and the Japanese police were hunting him down?" So doesn't need much knowledge of Saw canon and doesn't link up with the ongoing plot arcs of the films. On the Death Note side, there's no Note, and I chose not to include L and his proteges because I didn't think I'd be able to keep up with ensuing mind games and second-guessing.

Reviews welcome!)

Ide's annoyed to find his hands shaking as he puts the first cassette into the tape player. Under his palms the surface of the machine is slightly sticky, but the bare lightbulb hanging from the ceiling isn't bright enough to show exactly how dirty it is. Judging by the rest of the room, though, he probably doesn't want to handle it longer than necessary.

Next to him, Matsuda watches, arms wrapped round himself, air coming in clouds from his mouth. For once, he's quiet, and still except for his shivering and his quick glances round the room. Ide follows his stare for a second. The walls are coated with layers of mould and dirt and what could _easily_ be blood, and it's freezing.

Ide has been thinking _meat locker_ ever since he woke up here and got a proper look. He really, really wishes he wasn't.

And they don't have time to get distracted. He presses play.

_"Hello, Ide-san."_

The voice is rough and hoarse, just as it was on the tapes they've recovered from other crime scenes. (Which proves it, which proves they're -) Matsuda gulps, shudders, but he doesn't say anything, they just listen.

(He _knew_ them, that was the horrible thing. He'd been watching them and they hadn't even been close to tracking him down.)

_"I know you're not particularly good at recreation, but I want to play a game. You see, you no longer live, you simply exist. You hunt down those who have the strength to take what you wish you had, but instead of letting it motivate you, you've simply grown bitter and distrustful. Now, I want to see if you care about life outside of work after all. Can you reach past yourself, no matter how much it stings to admit you were wrong?_

_Live or die._

_Make your choice."_

The tape hisses to a stop.

"Oh god," Matsuda whispers at last, "oh god, oh _god_ -"

"Shut up," Ide hears himself say, sounding as angry as if he knows exactly what to do, as if he has a hope in hell of surviving this, "for god's sake, panicking is not going to solve anything -"

"We're going to die!" Matsuda wails, "you saw what happened to all the others, we're going to _die_ -"

Ide grabs him, shakes him - wants to punch him for giving in to terror this quickly - and Matsuda goes quiet, swallowing.

"Sorry..." he mutters. "Just... just..."

"You know there's always a way out," Ide says, fiercely enough to convince himself as well as Matsuda, "there's always a way out, we just have to find it. But if we panic, we really _will_ die."

"I... I know."

"Let's play the tape he gave you."

After a few moments, Matsuda hands over the tape.

"I know how to live," he whispers, his voice shaking. "I've got a life outside work. You know I have. It's not fair, I'm not supposed to be here -"

He stops as Ide puts the second tape into the cassette player, and shifts back a little.

When the same voice says _Hello, Matsuda-san_, Matsuda closes his eyes and his clouded breath drifts even faster. Ide tries not to look at him, to focus on listening to the tape, but his mind keeps running around trying to pretend this isn't happening, that he's panicked after working so hard on the damn Jigsaw killer case and this is a dream, that _something_, and the spoken words can hardly get through the panic buzzing like static in his head.

_"You don't take anything seriously. But you probably know that, don't you? Other people have told you enough times. Other people do a lot for you. They make the difficult choices for you. They help you choose a side. They assist you in pretending that sacrifices don't have to be made. _

_But there are always sacrifices, Matsuda-san. To win this game, you'll need to face the fact that one person living means another might have to die. Better reach deeper and see what you find, no matter how painful it may be._

_Let the game begin."_

The tape stops. Ide glances over at Matsuda, who's pressing his lips together, eyes big and terrified. After a few seconds he reaches out for the tape player, hand shaking, and then presses rewind.

_don't take anything seriously. But you probably know that_

"Come on," Ide says, "let's start - start thinking -"

_you don't take anything seriously. But you_

Matsuda snaps off the tape.

"I do..." He swallows. "I do take things seriously. I do, he - he doesn't know anything. Just because..."

Ide nearly says _no, you don't_, but he's damned if he's going to agree with the serial killer. And it's not like it'd be a helpful remark anyway.

Matsuda stares down at the cassette player again. His hands are shaking so much now that he struggles to press the buttons.

_people do a lot for you. They make_

It has to sting when you realise your colleagues, your superiors, your family and even the murderer you're supposed to be hunting down are all united in the belief that you're incompetent.

"Stop it," he says. "We don't have time to... besides, it's bullshit anyway."

Matsuda looks up at him.

"Yeah," he says at last. "Yeah. I mean, he said a load of stuff about you that - that isn't true either."

"Exactly."

(Jigsaw's crazy and the tape only proves it. Ide knows how to live, he's not like that guy who slit his wrists and ended up on the razor wire, he _wants_ to live, and if he doesn't trust easily that's just a side-effect of being a cop, all right? Unless you're Matsuda, of course, who seems to have been born without cynicism -)

Matsuda hits fast forward now, and the voice rasps out again.

_matter how painful it may be. Let the game begin._

"Anyway, it doesn't matter what's true and what's not," Ide says. "Our priority's got to be surviving."

Matsuda nods, stares round the room.

"It doesn't look like - like there's anything set to - to explode or whatever in here," he says. "We could - we could just wait. I mean, people will be looking for us, right? It's..." He glances at his watch, frowns. "Hey, do you think it's three a.m. or three p.m.?"

"If we wait," Ide says, "we could freeze to death before they find us. Or we'll wait, realise they don't know where we are, which I bet they don't, decide to - to fight our way out, and be weakened because we've been in here so long."

"But it'll - but he'll -"

"Don't think about it. Let's try and see what we have to do."

Matsuda gets up, hurries over to the door - still looking round warily every so often - and tries the handle. "It's - it's locked. Figures, huh?"

"Okay, so there's got to be a key somewhere around here."

"Two - two keys." Matsuda's teeth are chattering a little. "Two locks."

"Right. Let's -"

They both spot the metal tank in the corner at the same time.

"Be careful," Ide hisses as they walk over to it. His teeth are chattering as well now; the cold sticks in his chest. But in a way the temperature helps. Stops him thinking too much about all the crime scene photos he's studied for this case, at least. Bodies cut and burnt and mutilated, corpses missing teeth or fingers or limbs; shattered hands and feet, pulped skulls, empty eye sockets -

Plus it's so cold he can kid himself that's the only reason he's shaking.

The tank is about a foot high, and slightly less filthy than the wall behind it. Matsuda kneels down next to it, and his reflection, dead white, stares up at them. And there on the bottom, lying about a couple of feet away from each other, are the two keys.

"So we just have to reach into the water, right?" Matsuda glances round, warily. He's probably thinking about the photographs as well. "One key for each of us. You really think that's all it is?"

"On my tape," Ide says, slowly, "he said _reach past yourself_..."

"Yeah - and, and on mine he said something about reaching too, didn't he? That's got to be it. So let's just -"

"Do you really think he's going to ask us to do something that easy?" Ide hears his voice shaking, _it's cold, that's all, teeth chattering, get a grip, for god's __**sake**_ - "Take a proper look. I... I bet you it's not anything as harmless as water."

Matsuda leans a little closer, squints.

"I can't tell," he mutters. "Not in this light. It could be something different, it looks a bit of a weird colour, but..."

"Reach past yourself, no matter - no matter how much it _stings_..."

He expects Matsuda to freak out, to start yelling about how unfair it is, or just to refuse to do anything, demand to wait until someone else comes along to save them. But Matsuda doesn't. He just slumps a little, and then he whispers, "It isn't water, is it."

"You know how much the bastard loves his hints."

"What - what do you think it is?"

"I don't know. Acid, maybe? That'd look right."

Matsuda says, still very quietly, "So we have to -"

"Yes."

After another pause, Matsuda looks at him, swallows, hard. "N... now?"

"It's not going to turn into something else if we wait long enough." Ide feels like he really is dreaming - going along with total lunacy because it somehow makes perfect sense. They're going to plunge their hands into that damn tank and whatever that stuff is it's not going to be pleasant and yet, right now, right now he can't quite believe it, it won't _really_ hurt, _yeah, well, all the others probably couldn't quite believe it, could they? I'm not going to die here, you can survive if you - if you can just -_

"Now," he says. "Otherwise we'll wimp out. Roll up your sleeve, we don't want to get that stuff on us more than we have to."

Matsuda, looking sick, nods, starts unbuttoning his shirt cuff, hand shaking. "We just reach in and snatch them out, yeah?"

"Yeah. One each." It occurs to Ide that in theory, one person could grab both keys, but there probably wouldn't be much left of their skin by the time they'd done it. He's certainly not volunteering. He's not that selfless. Damn it, he's not selfless at all. "Don't drop it once you've got hold of it, for heaven's sake. And don't let the stuff splash up into your face."

"I - I'll try."

"No, you _won't let it_. I doubt blinding yourself is going to make this any easier."

Matsuda takes a deep, shaking breath. He's got his left sleeve rolled up now; his hands are trembling. Ide starts to fumble with his own shirt cuff, his cold fingers hardly able to feel it. _Get a fucking grip_ - Eventually - and Matsuda keeps staring at him, like he thinks Ide's trying to put it off or something - he's rolling up his sleeve, trying not to wince as the icy air hits bare skin. _There's going to be worse pain to deal with in a few seconds. _

_Don't think about it._

"Ready?" he says.

Matsuda laughs, chokily. "No."

"Come on."

"We're... we're going to look like real idiots if it turns out to only be water."

"That's fine. Looking like an idiot's the least of my problems right now." Ide swallows. His throat keeps going dry. "All right. On three."

"Sure." Matsuda grips his left hand with the right for a second, then lets it go, taking a long, shaky breath. Ide rests his right hand on the edge of the tank; after a few seconds, Matsuda joins him, placing his left there.

"Don't you dare bail on me."

"I won't!" Matsuda actually sounds hurt, as if he can afford to worry about slurs on his character. "I promise. Get the key, get out..."

"Don't say _nobody gets hurt_."

Matsuda laughs again, a short, shaky laugh.

"Okay," Ide says. His throat is so dry he can hardly get the word out. "One."

The dim light glints on the surface of the liquid.

"Two."

Matsuda reaches out and grips Ide's left wrist, nails digging in, and Ide realises how much he's trembling.

"Three!"

And they both sink their hands down into the tank.

For one tiny moment Ide thinks _it is water, thank god, it's just cool, it -_

Then the pain starts.

He sees his hand, pale under the liquid and light, reaching for the key and he _does_ feel the cold metal under his palm, under the pain, he does but it's far away it's all too far away, and it _hurts_ it fucking _hurts_ and _don't panic don't splash about_ and _keep hold of the fucking key I mean it don't you let go don't you dare - _

- and Matsuda is screaming -

- and Ide yanks his arm out of the liquid and the pain keeps crawling over his skin like ants, no, worse, like something's crushing his palm and Matsuda is still yelling but Ide can't turn his head to look at him, he's just staring at the key and, and he -

- can't think -

ooo

"Ide, wake up -"

_cold_

"- please -"

_something - got my hand - _

"Please?"

_**hurts**_

He opens his eyes, tries to sit up. For a moment the room splits into darkness again, but then he takes a gulp of chilly air and it slides back to its proper place.

_The tapes and the keys and playing his damn game -_

_The keys..._

His head aches, and his mouth tastes sickly, but that's nothing compared to his hand -

"Oh, god..."

"It's all right," Matsuda says, firmly. His eyes are wide, and the light glows in the sweat on his face. "It's - it's all right. You just blacked out. Because it - it hurt, but it's all right -"

"Didn't... I don't black out." Ide sits up, properly. His head lurches. "I was just..."

He looks down at his hand.

He half-expects to see bones, smoke curling up from the skin, something cartoon-horrible enough to match up with the grinding ache. Stupid, of course; he can't see much at all in the dim light. The skin's reddened, and, and too shiny, and when he tries to move his fingers it feels as if they've been coated with plaster or something and dear god it hurts -

"Yours... is yours the same?"

Matsuda nods. "But - but I got the key. I didn't drop it or anything, you were right! And yours is there, you didn't let it go under again, so... so we can get out of here."

"Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Come on." He scrambles to his feet, or tries to - the floor seems to tilt, and he drops back on to his knees, tasting nausea at the back of his throat. Too much spit in his mouth, and he swallows; he's not going to throw up in front of Matsuda.

"You want - you want to rest a little?" Matsuda says. "I mean, I know we have - we have to get moving, but... you kind of look dead. I mean - god - sorry -"

Ide hears himself laugh. "Forget it. The point is... is, we're not dead. Give me a minute, I'll... I'll be fine."

Matsuda nods, goes quiet. His breathing is still shaky, and every so often it threatens to turn into a yelp. Never actually makes it, though.

"You reckon it'll scar?" he says at last.

"What, our hands? Probably, at least a bit... Depends - depends how long it is before we... get them looked at." He suddenly wishes he hadn't said that. There's no guarantee that's the end of it, is there? All right, most of the victims only had to do one thing to survive, but they were on their own as well, and they weren't cops. He and Matsuda could both die here and their hands will never get a chance to heal and okay, it's dumb thinking like that, Matsuda's the one who's supposed to be giving up, he himself isn't going to, because he's going to survive this, he's going to _survive -_

"All right," he says. "Let's go."

"Are you sure you're okay? You still look kind of -"

"I'm fine." He sounds angrier than he meant to, and Matsuda goes silent, nods, stares at his feet.

It hurts to touch the door, which is made of steel or something but feels like ice. And turning a key with only one fully working hand isn't much fun either. Ide grits his teeth, tries to get himself to stay calm - _the worst has got to be over, we've done what he wanted - _but it's not helping. His chest is tight with panic, and no matter how much he tries to take deep breaths, it doesn't help.

"We should take the tape player," Matsuda says, as they manage to turn the second key. In the dim light he looks grey. "We'll look really stupid if he gives us tapes and we haven't got anything to play them on."

Ide wants to respond with something childish like _I don't care what he's going to say_, but he knows that that isn't true. So, shrugging, he goes to pick the tape player up, tucks it into his jacket pocket, then comes back and helps Matsuda turn the key.

And the door creaks open.

_Please let it be the outside, please -_

Of course, it's not. It's a low, dull corridor, lit with a few grubby strip lights. No windows - are they in a basement somewhere? - and still cold, although not the freezer-quality of the room they woke up in.

As the door opens fully, there's a click. Matsuda jumps, stumbles closer to Ide, but there are no explosions, no shots, nothing except that voice:

_"Well done. You've won the first game. But it isn't quite over. You're probably feeling quite nervous by now, so take the time to think as you walk. Maybe you've realised how much you value being alive, but can you trust each other to understand that? Sometimes, you have to accept an unhappy ending."_

"What does that even mean?" Matsuda demands. He's shaking, but for once it probably is more because of the cold than anything else - getting the key seems to have stopped him panicking. "Why can't he just spell it out like a normal person?"

"He isn't a normal person. Normal people don't put people in death traps, remember?"

"Huh." Matsuda makes to shove his hands in his pockets, then stops. "Hey - do you think he's here now?"

"I bet..." Ide glances round at the darkened corridor. "I bet he's watching. But he probably isn't anywhere we can get to him. Maybe there's a camera somewhere."

Matsuda scowls. "He's probably getting off on it, isn't he."

"Is that really relevant?" Ide can't decide whether it's vaguely soothing having Matsuda make pointless remarks like that or really, really irritating. His chest is still tight, and he feels queasy.

"Sorry," Matsuda says. "Guess I'm talking too much, I just... I'm kind of jumpy, you know?"

Ide shrugs. Their footsteps echo down the corridor, the only sound. There probably isn't anyone else around; why would there be? It smells mouldy, like no one's emptied the rubbish for years and a few birds have died in the corners into the bargain.

"How much air do you think there is in here?" Matsuda says, at last, in a small voice.

"Why are you asking? Do you really think I'll know?"

"Just feels like there isn't much, that's all. Like... it's... my chest kind of hurts, that's all. And I feel sort of sick."

"That doesn't mean we're running out of air!" Ide snaps back at him. "You could be feeling bad because of the burns! Or because it smells like shit in here, or just because you're panicking! Why do you always jump to conclusions?" And even as he yells it he knows Matsuda _isn't_ panicking, that if anyone's panicking it's him, but to die in here, in the dark, being watched and someone fucking laughing because you're trying so desperately to stay alive -

Matsuda looks back at him, and for a moment he looks hurt. But then he shrugs, and that irritating goofy grin - a good deal less hopeful than usual, but still - creeps over his face.

"You're probably right," he says. "Guess I'm just not looking on the bright side."

"That wasn't - that wasn't exactly what I meant." Ide isn't sure exactly what he did mean. Possibly nothing.

Matsuda shrugs. "Anyway, he doesn't want us just to die 'cause of the air running out, does he? He - he'll want it to be - more interesting than that -" He's walking a bit faster. Ide doesn't blame him. "I'm being dumb."

Ide wants to say _no you're not,_ but he's not sure he's got the energy to boost Matsuda's self-esteem, not right now. Instead, he says, "You're a hell of a lot more perky than you were when we first started."

"Yeah, well... it was a lot worse thinking about what we might have to do, you know? After all the people we've found... I mean, I know I used to wonder what I'd have done if it'd been me... but I didn't think it'd ever _happen."_

Ide swallows. He never thought about what he'd do if. He's never seen the point of it. (And besides, if you did, you'd only start getting jumpy, and then you'd be more likely to screw up, and he doesn't screw up, not like Matsuda does, that's why he's not going to die -)

"But now it's all right," Matsuda's continuing. "Well, not... all right. But... I mean, it hurt like hell, but I'm still alive. I figure if I can do that, I can do anything."

"Look, could you not say this kind of stuff? The bastard's probably thinking up some trap that'll break you as we speak."

"But it's gonna be fine, Ide, you know it is..."

His voice trails off as they turn the corner. Ahead of them there's another door, hung over with shadow.

"Be careful," Ide whispers. God, just speaking is making him feel sick now. This place stinks.

"You think - you think this is it?"

"Wouldn't surprise me. Just - don't trip on anything, or touch anything, or..."

"Get us killed. I know."

They're walking more slowly now.

When they're halfway there, Matsuda speaks again.

"Hey... I'm glad I'm not in this on my own. Don't you reckon?"

"If that's supposed to make me feel better about being here, it's not helping."

Matsuda laughs, and they keep walking.

ooo

It takes them far longer than it should've done to spot the corpse. At first Ide thinks it's just an oddly-shaped patch of shadow and that his mind's playing tricks on him, that he's seeing death everywhere -

And then, "Ide," Matsuda is whispering, and he's trembling again, "Ide, there's a body by the door."

The smell of rot is really bad now. Ide coughs, hears himself retch.

"You reckon it's real?" Matsuda says. "It smells real. God, I wonder if it's someone in another trap - I -" He's squatting down to look at it, uninjured hand over his mouth and nose. "I think they got shot -"

"Matsuda, we don't have time for this!"

"But there's - it's holding stuff -"

Ide comes over to look, trying not to breathe too deeply. In the corpse's right hand is what looks like some kind of syringe, in a clear plastic box. Tied around the same wrist is another tape. And in its left hand is a gun.

"Give me the tape," he snaps.

Matsuda nods, is already fumbling with the bands securing it. Ide grabs it off him, wrenches the cassette player from his pocket - his hands are shaking, mustn't _panic_, keep breathing, why is that so fucking hard? - slides the tape into the slot, hits play:

_"Hello, once again. The time has come to play the final game. _

_Both of you have been breathing in a deadly nerve gas since you woke up in this building. The initial symptoms are shortness of breath and nausea, but rapidly worsen, ending in coma and suffocation. Our friend on the floor blew his brains out rather than let it get that far, but there's still enough ammunition left to do what's necessary. _

_Because at present, there's only enough antidote for one person, and the door in front of you will give you a nasty shock if you try and leave that way. You could look for alternatives, but do you really have enough time? Can you trust yourselves to make the right choice?"_

Matsuda stares at the tape, then glances at the corpse. He's gone dead white in the lights, but his mouth is set in a shaky smile still - "Ide, he can't... it can't really... if we were breathing in gas we'd notice, we'd have to, he can't -"

"You said you couldn't breathe properly! You said you felt sick - god damn it, he's been playing us all along -" Ide closes his eyes a moment, but the lines of lights and the sprawled corpse and Matsuda's pale, terrified face hang in his mind anyway. There _has_ to be - but there isn't - "He said to you, he said about someone living might mean someone else dying. That you had to make difficult choices and, and it was all other people's fault -"

"Yeah, but -"

"So he wants you to kill me! That's his fucking plan, isn't it? Get you to finally take life seriously!"

"No, I -"

"Shoot me in the head or, or just leave me to choke to death -"

"I'm not going to!" Matsuda yells. "I wouldn't do that, there's got to be a way out, you said, we can make it out if we just stay calm! You _said_!"

"How goddamn stupid are you? You see any way of stopping this? We're poisoned already and the door's wired up to the mains or something, what the hell were you thinking of doing? Giving up and dying doesn't seem like your style!"

"Well - well, if we don't do something we'll _both_ die!" Matsuda yells, scrambling to his feet. "Why do you think shouting at me's going to help? I didn't put us in here!"

"Fine, start acting like it's all about you as usual. He was right! You don't fucking take anything seriously!"

Matsuda's mouth drops open.

And his eyes flick from Ide to the door to the corpse -

Then to the gun.

And Ide knows, he _knows_ that however much Matsuda might mouth off about doing the right thing and protecting the innocent, he's going to do it, he's going to shoot Ide down because he doesn't want to die here, not in the dark and the stench with the poison eating away at his lungs, he just doesn't want to die -

And they both dive for the weapon.

Ide dimly hears Matsuda yell "No, wait -" but he doesn't listen, _don't want to die, don't want to fucking die_ and he's wrenched the gun out from under Matsuda's fingers and then he is half-crouched half-standing and it hurts gripping the weapon with both hands it hurts but he's still pulling the trigger -

The corpse stink is swallowed up by the smell of the smoke.

And Matsuda crouches, quite still, mouth open in surprise, two dark spots swelling on the front of his shirt.

"Matsuda?" Ide hears himself say, not sure why, not sure whether he's about to start arguing or justifying or pleading or - or just -

Matsuda slumps forward, that dull expression of shock still on his face, and collapses onto the ground. Already he's not looking back.

And then there's nothing left but the shadows, and the smell.

ooo

_Aizawa's been pretty quiet as Ide told the story - bar the odd curse or muttered threat against Jigsaw - but now he's saying, numbly, as if he hasn't quite understood, "You did what? But I thought - I thought -"_

_"I told you when you found me," Ide says. "Remember?"_

_"Yes, but I thought you meant somehow you hadn't saved him. I - god -"_

_Ide shrugs, runs a finger across the bandages covering his right hand._

_"Believe what you want," he says at last. _

_Aizawa stares at him for a moment. Outside the window, it's sleeting, and the hiss drowns out the sounds of the hospital around them._

_"If you hadn't taken the antidote," he says, "the damage the gas did could've been a lot worse. Did they tell you that?"_

_"That's not the question you wanted to ask, is it."_

_Aizawa shrugs, almost angrily. "All right. Do you think he really was trying to shoot you?" _

_Ide is already staring up at the ceiling, face dull. _

_"Don't... don't know," he says at last. His voice is dry. "I've been thinking... I keep thinking..."_

_He swallows. Aizawa doesn't say anything._

_"He could've... he could've lost his temper with me," Ide says at last. "When I said that to him."_

_"Do you think that's what happened?"_

_"I don't __**know**__, all right? He could've - hell, I don't know, he could've been thinking he'd shoot his way out. Bust the lock off the door or something. He was being so damn optimistic. He thought he could do anything..."_

_His voice trails off. Aizawa doesn't look at him; stares down at the scribbled notes he's made instead._

_"I'm not asking you to - lie for me or anything," Ide says. "I know you'll have to take this further."_

_"God damnit. That bastard forced you into it!" Aizawa leans forward a little, fists clenched. "They know what Jigsaw's capable of. They'll take the circumstances into account -"_

_"Oh, come on. Don't... be all optimistic suddenly. It's not like you." Ide takes another breath, slowly. "I... on the tape, he said about trust. He kept talking about trust. I think... I think he... he wanted to make Matsuda take the antidote. __**Difficult choice**__..." Ide sits up a little. "And me, I had to let him do it and... and trust and... there would've been something... something else..."_

_"You don't know that. I can't believe your deaths would've bothered him, why the hell would he give you that chance?"_

_"Yeah, but there's always a way out." Ide half-smiles. "Right? Isn't that what he offers? The hope you can actually pull it off?"_

_"Well - whatever. There's no point in replaying it, not now. You should know that. What's done is done. God, I..."_

_"Yeah. What's done is done." Ide isn't looking at him now. "I wish it was that easy."_

To be continued


	2. Love is Dead

(A/N: a similar version of this was posted in various parts for the 12daysChristmas challenge on LiveJournal.)

Now the sun has set, and Mikami finds himself calmer. On schedule. He has not failed, not this time.

The sunset seems to be calming the woman as well. Earlier she shouted at him, screamed obscenities, accused him of hurting her children as if he were the sinner. Now she just sits on her bedroom floor with her head slumped, her short hair tangled, dressing gown over the nightclothes she had just put on when he had found her. He had insisted she wear it, pointed out that it gets cold at night and that she wouldn't have a chance to put it on later.

"So," she says suddenly, looking up at him, the bruise like a shadow across her face even in the milky twilight oozing through the curtains. "What happens now?"

"We will have to wait a while. I hope it won't be too uncomfortable for you."

She snorts. "I'm sure."

He doesn't think it will be. He made sure the handcuffs weren't too tight, and the two daughters are locked in their rooms, the younger one not even aware of what's happening.

She glances over at the tape recorder and mike, then away as if it scares her. Mikami can understand why it might; you hear stories, about women being recorded, and so he says, "You understand, it's only so he can hear you really are present."

"So you and the bastards you're working with can prove to my husband you can murder me if he doesn't do what they want."

"It isn't like that." Mikami has rehearsed this moment in his head, and he's known she would argue, make all the old points, but he hears his voice tremble a little. Outside a car rushes past, and the woman turns at the sound as if she thinks the driver might be able to see through the walls.

"Then how is it?" she snaps. "You've forced your way in here and taken us hostage and you tell me that - that Shuichi needs to see us like this and -" She swallows, hard. "What exactly am I misunderstanding here?"

"It - it's to help. It is to help your husband."

She laughs. A faint sobbing laugh and she lets her head slump back against the bedpost and she says, "My god. You really are crazy. How exactly is kidnapping his family going to help him?"

Mikami wants to sit down next to her, but he finds himself remaining by the wall, arms folded. As if he could be vulnerable in front of her. As if it's not safe to be too close. Well, perhaps it isn't. Most people are dangerous, he knows that all too well.

"Have you heard of the Jigsaw Killer?" he says.

She goes pale, so pale that it's like a white shadow covering her face. She doesn't even nod.

"They shouldn't call him that," Mikami says, feeling a little more confident now. He's on familiar ground. He knows this conversation. "He isn't a killer. He wants to help people. He wants to save them."

"I... I must be thinking of a different Jigsaw," she says, but she sounds sick now, sick and frightened. "The one I... I heard of has murdered dozens of people. He killed one man my husband worked with, nearly two. Tell me... who are you speaking about?"

"Your husband hasn't been coming home much recently, has he?"

"He's been trying to hunt _down_ that - that maniac!" she snaps, but she's not looking at him. "It's his _job_!"

"Jigsaw... Jigsaw wants..."

(_**"I want to help. I think you want to help, too."**_

_And his head still hurts from the gas and he doesn't know why he's here and it's filthy, it's all so filthy and the light is too bright and he can hear himself crying as if it isn't him at all but _

_that remark stops it_)

"So many people waste their lives. They lie and cheat and steal and they don't understand how lucky they are to be alive at all, how their ways are ruining life for everyone."

(_**"Haven't you always thought so? And there doesn't seem to be any way of making them realise how wrong they are. **_

_**"Sometimes**_)

"Sometimes there's only one way to make a point -"

"What have we done?" she screams up at him. "What have Shuichi and I done, what have our _children_ done, _why are you doing this_?"

"Your husband needs to understand. He doesn't value his family any more. He has become obsessed with catching the only person who is doing any good in this world."

She is leaning up, trying to get at him as if she's forgotten the cuffs are there. "How dare you talk like that about him? How _dare_ you?"

Mikami doesn't argue this time. He just waits for her to see that there is truth in what he's saying, and at last she does, she slumps back, taking little gulps of air, not looking at him again.

"If he can overcome that," Mikami says, "none of you will have to die."

"And - and if he can't? If he doesn't meet your standards?"

Mikami doesn't want that to happen.

There's silence for a second, and then she wrenches out the words, "You're going to murder me and two innocent girls in cold blood if Shuichi doesn't do what you want. Don't you think maybe you're on the wrong side? Don't you think you're the one _ruining things for everyone_?"

(_**"Come and see." **_

_He gets up and he stumbles over to the mirror._

_And there is a man on the other side, a businessman, and __**"You should know yourself that bullying doesn't stop once you leave high school,"**__ and Mikami watches and up until now he was thinking only of how not to die and how he mustn't fail God but then, but then, and the man, who is tall with a brutally good-looking face, who could easily be one of the evil ones from school but right now looks sick and pale and as scared as Mikami always felt, the man doesn't even listen to the instructions on the tape he's been given and then_

_then there is blood spattering everywhere, over the man's face and silk shirt and smart suit and spiky hair and Mikami watches and _

_and_

_**help me help me oh God please**_

_and_

_there is so much blood _

_and_

_And. And all at once he sees. Like he saw when his mother dies, he sees and he understands and it's no longer fear that he'll be harmed, it's a new terror, because who can look on the face of God's emissary and not fear?_

_**"How else**_)

"How else will people change their ways? How else will they get the strength if there's nothing at risk?" He doesn't bother to explain about God. No one ever understands that. Even Jigsaw doesn't ever talk about it, but Mikami doesn't mind because he knows the truth.

"Your husband loves you," he says to her. "He'll find the strength. You must tell him what he has to do. I'll explain what to say."

ooo

Aizawa opens his eyes and yet it's still dark.

For a moment he thinks it's a dream, or a really cloudy night, but then he notices the cold, the grittiness under his hands, the stale air.

_No. No, no, it... just been working too hard, it..._

He blinks again, and he tries to sit up, and as he does, his head brushes something cold and hard, _the ceiling? But -_ it's too low and even though he can't see it he can feel the walls around him, he has to get _out_ -

Already, he's sort of suspecting. He always sort-of wondered what he would do if it did happen to him. Always kind of thought he'd keep it together, at least try and make it out alive. But that's a lot harder to believe when you're _in_ it -

_Bastard got the jump on me, what's he gonna do, what's he gonna __**do -**_

He doesn't keep it together. He starts yelling and he wants to kid himself he's yelling for help but he's just yelling. The dark eats up the sound anyway, and eventually he hears himself stop, his breath rasping in the small space. His head aches; a faint throbbing behind his eyes and along his temples, and when he puts a hand to the side of his face it aches as if he's been hit there - no fucking _time_ to start whining about headaches, _think_! Tape. There'll be a tape, there's always a tape, or _something_, it clues you in, this won't be so bad once he knows what the bastard's gonna make him do -

- right? -

He's scrabbling about, dust and grit under his nails, stubbing his fingers on the walls, but there's nothing, there's just nothing, and it takes him far longer than it should've to start searching methodically, start in one corner and work back. Once he does that he realises how small the space he's in is. It's not even a room, more like a cupboard. (A coffin.) _How much air?_ Can't start asking that. Just have to trust there _is_ a way out and he's not going to suffocate or be gassed or, or whatever else the bastard could've thought up -

The tape player under his hand. Slightly sticky, and the keys press down grudgingly as if the whole thing hasn't been used for years.

Press play.

_"Hello, Aizawa-san."_

And it _is_, it's exactly the same as the tapes they found before, and he slumps back onto his heels and he wants to curse and keep cursing because when you're angry you aren't scared but he can't, all he can do is listen.

"_We've never met, but I think we're quite well-acquainted by now. You've certainly been taking an interest in my work, and so I've returned the favour. For someone who's so concerned about doing the right thing, you don't often stop and reflect on what the truth really is, do you? Perhaps after this you'll see things differently._

_"You haven't been home much recently. You'll want to hurry back before it's too late, because otherwise..."_

And then there's a click, and a shuffling, thumping noise, and then -

_"Shuichi?"_

It's Eriko.

Aizawa finds himself speaking, he hears himself say _"No,"_ and then, again, "No, _no_!" and he's yelling over Eriko's words and he has to stop and rewind.

_"Before it's too late, because otherwise..._

_"Shuichi? It's... it's me."_ A pause, and she takes a deep, shuddering breath. "_There's - someone's broken into the house. He's - if - he's got the girls as well, I haven't seen them but he says they'll all right. At the moment. Oh god... he's making me tell you that... that if you don't... if you don't see the truth that's behind your eyes, then he's going to kill us. He says you have until... until five o'clock."_ She swallows, he hears it, they must have a mike right to her mouth or something, _"He says he's working for the Jigsaw killer."_ And then, furiously, voice shaking, "_The bastard __**worships**__ him -"_

Her voice cuts off, but then the next second the growling tones of the first speaker are back.

_"Which is more important, your career or your family? Observers would say your career, but I think you've blinded yourself to what means most to you -"_

He switches the tape off. He switches it off because if he didn't, he'd hurl the cassette player at the nearest wall (and the walls are very near). _You think this is going to __**stop**__ me? You think I'm going to be fucking scared of you, you think I'm just going to give up? Like hell, I'm gonna get out of here, I promise, and when I find you I'm going to __**kill**__ you -_

He makes himself lean against the wall, take some deep breaths, because he can't afford to be angry, he has to stay calm, that's his only hope, and, as he slumps, his hand brushes something else. A corner; a box. Reaching in, warily, he feels the curved smooth surface of -

_a torch?_

Light bursts out, filled with dust, spilling onto the grimy walls (dear god it really does look like a meat locker or something). He shines the torchbeam up over the walls, over the ceiling (the lid?) and sees two keyholes. They're really small, and he wonders if he can bust them open himself, but he tries, and nothing even moves, nothing even shakes, and his head throbs even more.

"Just find the keys, huh?" His voice sounds choked, as if the lack of space in here is pressing onto his lungs. But that's got to be it. Just find the keys. Find the keys, get out, get home, save Eriko and the girls, and then make this bastard pay. That's it, it's going to be fine, fuck he can see in the torchlight that his hands are shaking -

He's just about to press play again when it occurs to him to check inside the box. Of course, there aren't keys.

There is a scalpel in a clear plastic bag.

He stares at it, and then, numbly, starts the cassette again.

"_- means most to you. Which are you going to pick?_

_There are two keys, Aizawa-san. Two keys, for two locks. Finding them might be a bit challenging, but don't give up. I would say they're right in front of your eyes, but that's not quite the case. Try a few inches further back._

_I know a blind police officer is of little use to his colleagues, but I think you lost your perception months ago."_

It.

It _can't_ be, how would you even - how would -

He puts a hand to his temple again, and this time he feels the thin, stitched scars that sure as hell weren't there the last time he checked.

_Think, think, this can't be it, it, he can't be fucking serious, I can't, I __**can't**__ -_

He's shining the torch around this room again, not looking even for anything specific, just some hope, some hint, some suggestion that things aren't as bad as they look, and then the beam passes over - a shape, faint lines -

It's an X-ray, pinned on the wall. An X-ray of a person's skull. He wouldn't have recognised it as his, can't swear that it is his, that this isn't all a sick practical joke, Jigsaw's way of getting rid of an inconvenience, but it doesn't change the fact that behind each eye socket is a the black cut-out shape of a key.

His watch says it's twenty to five.

_You really think I'll sacrifice them for you? _

_Like - like hell._

(Pretend it's noble and maybe it won't hurt so much -)

He presses his cold fingers to his eyes for a second, and then he reaches for the scalpel.

At first there is just the pain of a cut, of a blade slicing into skin, and then - he grits his teeth, _don't be such a goddamn wimp_ - his hands ache with the thought of what's to come but he jabs the blade deeper -

And starts screaming. As it starts to go dark.


	3. The Beloved and the Hatred

(A/N: another one where the original versions of these were written for 12daysChristmas on LiveJournal. Because Christmas is all about Saw. Or something ^^)

_He thinks he might be blacking out but when black's all you can see it's hard to tell, right? Right? After the first eye he was biting down on the side of his hand 'cause he thought if he didn't he'd faint and then he'd lose the first fucking key and through the pain screaming from the socket he tilted his head forward and something small and cold and hard and sticky with blood and slime hit his palm - _

_And then he woke up slumped on the floor but the key was still in his palm and so, something, some part of his brain that was actually managing to co-ordinate the whole fucking enterprise, told him to try the locks while he still had one working eye and in the second lock he tried it worked and there was just a touch of cool air and he yelled for help and tried to wrench the whole thing open but he couldn't and no one came and blood was oozing down his cheek, he could taste it._

_And then he crouched in the corner next to the other lock and then he raised the scalpel again and the second time wasn't any easier than the first._

ooo

He's waiting to open his eyes.

Or he's dreaming. Half-asleep, knowing he's lying in bed, and soon he'll wake up and everything he knows has happened will turn out to have been a nightmare. (He can hear faint bleeps, footsteps. Nurses' chatter.) It will turn out to have been a nightmare. Or, at the very least, _not that bad_. (The scalpel and the keys slippery in his hand.) He is going to open his eyes. He is _going to open his eyes_ except that he knows he isn't because he, he can feel nothing, painkiller'd to (oh god) the eyeballs but just the faint itchy edge of bandages against his cheekbones -

"Shuichi?"

He breathes out and he hears his breathing shake. (Maybe _this_ is the nightmare, maybe he was too late and he's only adding her voice in over the murmurs and the chirps of machinery because he can't bear to admit that he's lost them, he's destroyed them and it was all his own fault -)

"I'm here!" she says, and her voice shakes too, and he feels fingers brush his hand. He grips them even as he thinks _how do I know it's her?_ He grips them and feels skin and bone against his palm and _the key sticky in his hand -_

"I'm sorry," she says, and now she's crying. (It feels wrong not looking at her. It feels like he's embarrassed, deliberately closing his eyes as if that will make it better.) "He made me say it, I didn't want to, oh god, Shuichi, I'm so sorry -"

"Don't be stupid," he hears himself say. It's as if it's someone else, someone who at least knows what reality actually is, but fine, that person can deal with this while he just... waits to see if he wakes up.

Though even this other him sounds so tired.

But, "Not your fault," they carry on anyway. "You... are you all right? The girls?"

And he waits for her quick _Yes, we're fine_, and it doesn't come, and he starts wishing for this to be the dream all over again.

ooo

_Yumi has never been this scared and the more she tries to think the more she thinks about what the man could be doing to Mum or Youko and the more scared she gets and then she finds herself curled up, pressing her knees to her chest, crying and it's this weird high terrified noise she doesn't think she's made before ever, she sounds like a... a bird or something, or a squealing pig. She tries to tell herself to __**stop**__ it and be sensible and brave and stuff but she's sitting there crying and freaking out for a good few minutes before she remembers about the spare key. _

_'Cause Mum said because she was growing up, sometimes she might want to lock her bedroom and that was okay but they'd have a key too just in case something ever went wrong. So their key was on the hook downstairs and that was what the man had locked her in with (he'd been talking to her all politely like he was a friend's dad or something but Mum had been yelling and that had just been even scarier, he was the polite one and they were all rude). But her key was in her room, hidden under the lucky cat ornament Youko had given her last birthday (what if he'd done stuff to Youko? Oh, god, like one of those stories on the news, what if he was doing stuff right now, what if he was going to come and find her next, and her brain's off again, __**can't be happening, can't, can't -**__)_

_**Stop it! Stop it, shut up, shut up, you've got the key -**_

_She could get __**out**__. And - and then - _

_Don't think about __**and then**__. _

_She wriggles about and manages to like get up on her knees. Then to slide her feet under her bed and then she pushes her toes up against the floor. It hurts but she bites her lip and she manages to lift the bed up just enough that she can slide her cuffed hands out from under the leg of it. Then she manages to bring them round to her front (it's not as easy as it looks in the movies and her nightie keeps riding up but really, it doesn't matter, what matters is she doesn't crash about and get the man to come find out what's happening. Oh god, what if he does, what if he comes in, __**stop it**__ -) _

_The key is small and heavy and her hands are all sweaty and shaking but she's __**got**__ it at least. It looks weird seeing her hands with handcuffs on them. She makes herself think __**like I've been arrested**__ because that's not so bad, that makes her think of Dad, __**and he'll come back and save us, there's just this one guy, Dad can handle him fine -**_

_Think. Think. Her mobile phone is... is downstairs on the table, right? 'Cause she had it out in case Hamazaki texted her. So the man might've found it, stamped on it or at least moved it, and she can't just go running through the house looking, he'll hear. But the house phone, right, he might not have done anything to that, might he? Okay, sometimes they cut the wires or whatever, in movies, but she has to __**try**__. Or - or maybe just run to the front door, get out and run to one of the neighbours? Suzuki-san or Yamada-san? But what if he hears? Comes after her? Or what if something's happened there, or if they__** know**__, if like they're all bad people, like in that stupid __**stupid**__ movie Hamazaki made her watch last week, you think you've escaped and then it turns out everyone's in league - _

_She digs the key into her palm and the hurt calms her down a bit. Just do something. Just do something and everything will be okay. It has to be._

ooo

"What happened?" he yells, and now he gets it, now he _knows_ he can't open his eyes because she could've wandered away, everyone else could know and he's just _stuck_ here -

"Please, just - just listen, all right? Youko is fine. She slept through the whole thing and Suzuki-san is looking after her now."

"What about Yumi?" That damn voice, _you'll want to hurry back before it's too late_, he's got her killed, he's got her _killed_ -

Eriko swallows, and he hears her sob. "They're looking after her right now, they're doing everything they can. That - that monster, he - he got a call from someone and..."

ooo

_"I didn't want to. I didn't want to hurt her! He had passed the test! Why did she have to -"_

_Mikami digs his nails into his palms, trying to focus on that, on sweat and skin -_

_**(police, please; this man's broken into our house, we live at**__)_

_She had been going to ruin everything, she hadn't known it would all be all right_

_She had been trying to destroy God, she hadn't understood and _

_He should have run. He knows that now, he should have just run, she was only a child, she wouldn't have been able to stop him, but he didn't, he had been so angry with her and he'd still had the gun_

_He realises he's clawing at his wrists now, trying to break the skin; the bullet had knocked her right off her feet as if he'd slapped her, and then there'd been a spatter of blood across the wall and from upstairs the woman screaming and he can't think about it, he can't, he can't -_

_At the other end of the phone, God sighs, and says, "Sometimes, the innocent die."_

_"No! No, I was meant to be doing your work, I was meant to be making it __**better**__!"_

_"The child might survive."_

_"But I didn't want to hurt her! I never wanted to hurt anyone!" Is that true? It is different when they are evildoers, it is different when they don't understand, but this is __**his**__ fault, he was prideful and arrogant and thought he was worthy of doing God's work when - when -_

_"Let me atone," he whispers. "Oh God, please, let me - let me make it better..."_

_There's a long silence and Mikami wonders if he's overstepped the bounds - if you cannot ask, if you must wait to recieve; but then God says, "Is that really what you want? You know what it might entail."_

_Mikami would willingly pluck out his own eyes if he has to, he doesn't care, he just wants the guilt to stop, he just wants to purge himself of the sin -_

_"All right," God says, at last. "One day, I'll come to you and give you a chance to make good. I promise."_

ooo

Eventually Aizawa hears himself say, "I should've known it would happen." Is it true? He can't remember now whether it was ever something he thought of - whether, sometimes he did wonder _what if. _Perhaps, if he did, he chose not to think about it further (because what would he have done, after all? Backed down?)

Eriko is holding both of his hands. But she doesn't say anything. He wishes he could see her expression. (God, he'll never see her face again, he'll -)

"You were doing what you thought was right," she whispers at last. She sounds very tired. He can't tell if there's understanding underneath or suppressed resentment. "You couldn't know he'd target us."

"But you're angry."

A pause, and then: "With everyone. Not just... not you."

Which pretty much seals it, but he tries to pretend it hasn't. Right now he can't - he can't think too much about how much she must hate him.

"And..." She takes another shaky breath. "And after all, you..." She lets go of one of his hands, but then he feels her fingers brush his face - not close to the bandages, but he gets her point. "He would have shot us all if you hadn't managed to..."

As if he's a _hero, _as if he deserves _praise - _"Don't -" (The key in his hand; screaming for help; torchlight -) "Just don't think about it -"

"Why not? I don't know that I could have... if it had been me..." Her fingers shake a little, but then she says, almost completely calmly, "Listen. We'll get through this, all right? I promise."

God, he wants to believe her.

ooo

When the phone rings, for the first time in days, Ide finds himself staring vengefully at it as if he already knows it'll be someone hissing _murderer, you'll get what's coming to you_. No one's actually said this, but really they don't need to.

Of course when he does answer, it's not that at all (and why would it have been? He's already proved he's useless at predicting events). It's Aizawa's wife, voice measured and calm, stating that Aizawa wonders if they could meet. She doesn't ask _why didn't you offer to come and see him earlier? You knew what had happened to him_ but Ide finds himself blurting out defensively that he wasn't sure whether his former colleague would welcome the company or whether he needed time to recuperate. Then he realises he's sounding insane and, trying to pretend he's gone straight in at this more sensible juncture, says that he could come round any time they like. But she's already cutting in, explaining that Aizawa wants to come to him. "I'll drive him. When would be a good time?"

"Any time," he says - he's not going to make up prior commitments, he doesn't see why he needs to pretend that his life is so busy and exciting when Eriko knows full well why he's got so much free time. And so, barely an hour later, he hears their car pull up outside. He doesn't want it to look like he was waiting for them, either. Of course, he was. The sky is grey-white and very still. It's been like that all day. Like all the weather has been burnt away by something.

Footsteps and then a knock on the door and he opens it to see Aizawa and Eriko standing there. He looks at Aizawa first and he catches himself thinking _that's not right, he's supposed to be blind_, and then realises that of course it's glass eyes and then he can tell, he can realise that Aizawa can't see him.

Eriko touches her husband lightly on the shoulder and says that she'll go back downstairs, wait with the girls. Ide watches her walk away and then realises he doesn't want to look at Aizawa. The man's eyes aren't seeing anything, they aren't focusing on anything, he just stands there and then at last he says, wrenching out the words, "It's some time since I've been here, all right? If you don't want me to walk into the nearest wall -"

Ide wants to say _I'm sorry_ but he thinks that might only make it worse, and so he just mutters "Right... sure, this way -" and guides his friend over to the table. Aizawa is tensed, furious; Ide's tempted to rationalise that he clearly didn't _want_ to see any of his colleagues but that doesn't make it any better that Ide never offered.

"You want some tea or anything?" he says at last.

"No. Thanks."

"If Eriko wanted to come in - I don't mind -"

"I told her not to," Aizawa snaps. "Besides, Yumi and Youko are with her."

"They are?"

"Yumi won't stay in the house on her own any more, and she isn't back at school yet. We had to bring them."

"Well... I don't mind," Ide says, not knowing how else to respond.

"That's not the damn point, they don't need to be here. I wanted to talk to you about Jigsaw."

It's the most obvious topic of conversation, but Ide still hears himself snap, "I'm not exactly in the loop on this, why didn't you talk to someone who hasn't been suspended pending investigation?"

"Because I wanted to speak to _you,_" Aizawa retorts, and Ide so very nearly says _because you don't want anyone else to see you like this?_ But manages to bite it back just in time. If he were in a more charitable mood, he could be grateful anyone still wants to talk to him after what he did. He isn't in that sort of mood, but it doesn't mean he can afford to lash out.

"Why?" he says instead. "You know my death-trap-related horror story." _You remember. You managed to __**gouge out your own eyes**__ in order to save your family, and I shot Matsuda in the heart because I couldn't think what else to do._ And he _knows_ Aizawa wouldn't be here simply to boast, but _he'll think it, they'll all fucking think it, you get to be a hero -_

Aizawa sighs. At last, he says, "You know they think there's a mole in the police. That's how Jigsaw knew about me and my family. That's how he knew about you. And Matsuda."

"I... sure, I guess that makes sense." Actually, he hadn't thought about it before, but it's better than the perception, always at the back of his mind, that Jigsaw is some kind of all-knowing god who can find out anything he wants. And hey, it's someone else in the department screwing up and doing something awful. Always nice.

"You know you're one of the suspects?"

"What?"

"They're wondering if you're connected with him." Then, evidently picking up on the disbelief, he carries on, "oh, for god's sake, look at it from their perspective. You go into a trap and you come out with no more damage than a burnt hand. Your colleague doesn't survive because you were apparently made to shoot him -"

"I _know_ all this, all right?" Ide manages to say, so furious he's actually struggling to breathe. "I'd hardly have forgotten it!"

"I'm just saying, it doesn't look good."

"Why the _hell_ would I have gone along with a plan like that?" He can hear his voice shaking; he grits his teeth. "You'd think I'd have at least made an effort to make it look like something else killed - I admitted it to your _face_, why would I -"

"Stop it," Aizawa says, wearily. "I know it wasn't you. I... I wanted..."

"You wanted to hear me say it?"

Aizawa shrugs.

"Well, if you've decided I'm not working with a homicidal maniac, do let me walk you back down to your wife, if that's all you -"

"I came," Aizawa says, cutting him off, "because I wanted to ask you to help."

"Help? Help with what?"

"I want to -" Aizawa stops, and actually smiles. "I was going to say _I want to see that bastard dead_, but I suppose that's not an option any more."

"You want him to pay for everything he's done?"

"Yeah. I can't -" He swallows. "They aren't going to -"

"They don't want you back, and they don't want me back. That's it, isn't it?" Ide feels himself smiling now, bitter, humourless. It's an odd thought to realise Aizawa can't see it. "But you're too pig-headed to quit now."

"I can't." Aizawa sounds numb suddenly, numb and tired. "I can't just let this be it, I - he's still out there, damn it, he could be walking down the street, he could be looking at me and celebrating how he's got me off the case and I wouldn't even know -"

"All right," Ide says, because he can't bear to hear his friend sound so hopeless. "All right, I'll help you. You're not going to be able to do it alone, that's for sure."

Aizawa nods.

"Just don't get us put into another trap. I can do without any more disfiguring injuries."

Aizawa laughs, but they both know it's probably not a joke. But that doesn't matter. They've got to take some steps; they can't just quit the game. It sounds like a line from one of the bastard's creepy recordings, but that's appropriate, isn't it? _Do nothing, and you'll die._


	4. House of Sleep

(A/N: I should add that I'm taking chapter titles from songs from Saw soundtracks - it seemed appropriate. Chapter 1's title is from Papa Roach, Chapter 2's from Kopek, and Chapter 3's from Caliban. This chapter's is from Amorphis.)

_"Okay..." Aizawa rubs his eyes, takes another gulp of coffee. Outside Ide's apartment, the sky is flat black, and even with the heating unit on full blast the air is cold and clammy on their fingers. "Tell me again what happened the night he got you both."_

_Ide is tired and there's a queasiness at the back of his mind that they're never going to work out who's done all this to them. That they're just killing time while they wait for something to happen - arrest, capture, someone else to find Jigsaw first, __**something**__. He figures Aizawa probably feels the same, but he says anyway, "Have you forgotten the details already? We woke up in this meat locker -"_

_"Not that bit. When you were still at the headquarters."_

_"I've told you all that."_

_"Well, go through it again!" Aizawa snaps. "We're obviously missing something, we've got to be!" His hands are curling into fists but his eyes, of course, still don't meet Ide's, giving the sense that he's holding off on confrontation, or being passive-aggressive about it. Ide hates him for it, it's like his friend's been replaced with a bad copy, but he can't exactly say that out loud. He reminds himself that with Aizawa being the only person still trusting him, he really can't afford to act like a child, and - trying to sound like he's perfectly calm about everything - starts to speak. _

_"Okay. We were working late. Me and Matsuda."_

_"Just you two?"_

_"Yeah. I... I felt like putting the time in." He doesn't feel like explaining that occasionally, he doesn't want to go home to an empty apartment and an instant meal; occasionally, he's happiest getting things done, coasting on energy no matter how late it is. "No reason why... I mean, it wasn't as if I'd planned it in advance. But you know we all were. We were all getting sick of the dead ends." _

_"Even Matsuda? He hardly had a finely honed work ethic."_

_"Yeah, but you know what he - he was like. Sometimes he'd be really keen to do well, show he was as much use as anyone. He was like that this time. He kept saying to me __**come on, I know we can crack this case.**__ Maybe because the rest of us were all so pissed off with it." _

_Aizawa still looks disbelieving. "Really?"_

_"Yeah. He'd been kind of unfocused the last few days, I guess, but now he'd come back from that. I don't know. He always wanted to think he was in an action film, he wanted to catch the bad guys and sometimes he got upset about stuff we saw, so I suppose it was... I suppose it was something like that." Ide knows he's wandering off the point but Aizawa doesn't call him on it and so he keeps talking. "He'd been coming out with... just random comments - just because I was the one who sat next to him, I suppose. Like he was thinking out loud."_

_"What sort of comments?"_

_"I don't know. Like how some of the people, there'd been signs they'd been going to do something really bad so maybe Jigsaw had saved some lives by doing what he did. Pointless stuff like that. Or... wondering what it would've been like to die that way. Like with Toyama - the guy who killed the Amane couple, you remember - saying how the problem with it was, there wasn't any smoke so you wouldn't get a chance to choke to death before the flames got you. I didn't really take much notice of it. He's - he always just said what was in his head." _

_He hates the way he talks about Matsuda now. As if mentioning trivial details about the man or hypothesising why he acted this or that way somehow makes him alive again. Or suggests that there was a bond between the two of them, that they were friends, that Ide would never have wanted to kill someone he could talk about like this. He hates it and yet he still does it. At least, he does it when he's talking to Aizawa and Aizawa is the only person he __**does**__ talk to now. Perhaps he's pretending that Aizawa can no longer pick up on things like that - ulterior motives, stupid habits - or can't tell if he's holding back on discussing a particular topic. He knows that's stupid - __**he's blind, not deaf**__ - but he likes to believe it because otherwise he becomes horribly aware of every awkward pause or tremor in his voice or fierce rejoinder to an innocent question and then they just happen more and more often. So, Aizawa hasn't noticed anything, and now he can carry on, calmly, "Anyway. This night, he seemed really keen to stay behind but... I don't think he was actually getting much done, I think he was just reading reports. Not that I was really noticing. I hadn't stayed to keep tabs on him."_

_"Okay, so the two of you were the only ones there, working in silence - or procrastinating in silence, in Matsuda's case - then what?"_

_"I realised I was about to fall asleep and decided to call it a night. I guess... I guess I had noticed Matsuda wasn't doing much because I said something like that to him, I said he should go home because he was hardly going to be productive at this time of night. He just... he just laughed and said he thought being hard-working was a good thing. Or something. But he headed out of the building with me right away, like he was looking for an excuse to leave. I supposed he'd liked the idea of working late more than the reality or something."_

_"And did you see anyone on your way out?"_

_"I don't... I don't think so. It was foggy out there and... Matsuda was going on about how it was creepy. I assumed it was because he'd been freaking himself out by reading autopsy reports, I said something like how those of us who'd been doing the dull work didn't end up jumping at shadows and he... I think he'd stopped, looking out of the window, and I told him to get a move on. He could've... but he didn't say anything, if he did spot someone."_

_"You don't know what he was thinking," Aizawa says, more gently. "And even if he had seen anything, it isn't like either of you had any reason to suspect it wasn't above-board."_

_Ide doesn't explain why he wishes Matsuda __**had **__said, __**hey, there's someone prowling around out there, it looks suspicious.**__ Not so much because then perhaps they could have avoided all this or anything as neat as that but just because the idea that you can protect yourself, if you're observant enough, is still something he desperately wants to believe. Even if he'd ignored the warning then there would be a point at which he could identify it all going wrong._

_His throat tightens, and he swallows and forces his voice to stay level. "We... we carried on. Out into the car park. He was still a bit twitchy. He started... he started talking as if he was trying to make conversation, as if we were going to be hanging around. Like he really had scared himself. I said it was too cold to chat and... I suppose I must've gone to my car, but I don't remember."_

_"And there wasn't any sign of bruising, so they didn't knock you over the head. Probably chloroform or something, then."_

_"I guess."_

_"It relies far too much on coincidence, from what you're telling me," Aizawa says at last, frowning. "You'd just decided to stay late on a whim; Matsuda -"_

_**We'll never know what he was thinking, will we -**_

_Aizawa carries on, "It doesn't sound like he had any reason to be there - you decided to leave just because you were tired, it wasn't like the building was being closed up, or anyone else asked you to..." He taps his fingers on the table for a second. "Unless he was meeting someone there... but then why were you involved?"_

_"You think he'd arranged to - to __**meet**__ Jigsaw? Or his accomplice?" _

_"I don't know. Like you said, it's Matsuda. He got jumpy easily. And I can't believe if he'd got hold of something __**that**__ big, he wouldn't have mentioned it to someone - he didn't have any reason to think there was a spy, not then. Even he wouldn't have been so stupid as to keep it all to himself, surely." _

_"He would've told the Chief, at least. Hell, he would've been desperate to pass on something which could really help."_

_"Exactly," Aizawa says. He shrugs. "I mean, we don't know that it wasn't just... bad luck it was you two."_

_Ide stares at him and then remembers an incredulous look isn't enough any more and says, "You're seriously telling me Jigsaw was looking for someone to kidnap and we happened to walk out of the building at the wrong time?"_

_"I don't know, okay? But if someone was passing information to Jigsaw, then he would've known about all the detectives on the case. They knocked you both out, so they'd have enough time to record whatever tapes they wanted. Jigsaw talks like it's about morality, but it's just as likely that he wanted to destabilise the investigation."_

_"Oh, because we were both so vital?"_

_"Because it left everyone else completely terrified," Aizawa said. "He followed that up with - with what happened to me, and now no one's talking to anyone else and no one wants to be too eager in case they attract attention. Oh, and everyone's keeping information to themselves and our chances of finding the spy have gone down massively."_

_Ide knows it all makes sense but he hears himself say anyway, "Not if it's me. Then Jigsaw just did you all a big favour, right?"_

_"For god's sake. What you and everyone who's going on like this seem to have forgotten," Aizawa says, "is that if you were the one screwing us over, you'd be able to do a hell of a lot more within the department then as you are now. All you've done is get yourself put under suspicion. I can tell you they're following up leads related to you, so now you've not only got yourself suspended, you'll probably reveal Jigsaw's identity too. And you've been given any number of chances to tell everyone that Matsuda was trying to kill you, that he cracked under the pressure and it was all his fault. Instead of which, you keep saying you didn't know what he was going to do, that you panicked -"_

_"I haven't forgotten any of this, you know!"_

_"Well, you're the one fishing for compliments!" _

_Aizawa doesn't look at him, but Ide feels small and stupid and - it's not that, it's hearing Aizawa say, __**it was just random, you were in the wrong place at the wrong time **__- and he could've done any number of things instead, he could've -_

_Aizawa sighs. _

_"I think you were a diversion," he says. "I think the spy was getting nervous. Or Jigsaw was. Which means we knew more than we thought we did at the time."_

_"We've been through all the deaths with a magnifying glass and there's nothing." Ide feels like the information's written on the back of his eyes but he drags the file towards him, stares down again at the neatly typed list of victims and his own handwritten notes around the names. Much of the comment he's scribbled down is thoughts Aizawa had, he notices. He's barely contributed anything._

_Kuro Otoharada__**- first victim (that we know of?) Warned in past for threatening behaviour towards children/young families, neighbours/rest of apartment scared of him. Gun found in apartment - no sign of struggle - abduction outside home**_

_Takuo Shibuimaru__** - previous convictions for disorderly behaviour, assault, dangerous driving - active on biking scene, reputation as 'wild card' 'ladies man'. Likely abducted after night out**_

_Kyosuke Higuchi__** - Yotsuba - poor people skills, discussion with HR re bullying his secretary - 'greedy' 'arrogant' - being passed over for promotion and everyone knew it - gain? Last seen Code Red hostess bar, cf Shibuimaru**_

_Yuji Toyama__** - high-profile trial - Ichiro and Mariko Amane deaths - first 'serious' criminal - break in pattern or just opportunity spotted? Abduction from apartment, no witnesses (again - break in pattern or opportunity?)**_

_Kiichiro Osoreda__** - previous convictions for assault, drug possession, long-term addict, landlord & neighbours aware (and frustrated/scared). No witnesses to abduction, no sign of disturbance in apartment**_

_Misa Amane__** - 1st woman, 1st 'non-criminal', **__**1st survivor**__**, lost 2 fingers in trap, abduction walking home from subway (prior observation?) 2 months after article in Eighteen (reference to parents' deaths)**_

_Masaaki Shirami__**- arson = insurance fraud (no arrest made, not a suspect at time of death). Previous convictions for benefits scams, theft. Wife Izumi suspected arson attacks, claimed no mention to anyone else. Trap = fire - reference? Instructions from J to Shirami destroyed in blaze**_

_Keito Nawarami__** - previous convictions for robbery w/ assault, friends admitted 'plotting something big', abduction in small hours of 24th, last seen semi-conscious at One Forth bar**_

_Misa Amane__** - targeted again, 'you didn't learn what you needed to' - why? Action she refused to follow through on? Obsession? Repeated victim change in MO or would any survivor still not measure up? Implied she was going out to meet a boyfriend (no phone records/sightings - likely J)**_

_Touta Matsuda_

_Ide always stops reading at this point, he doesn't need to see his own crime lined up and dissected with all the others. It's pathetic, he knows, it's like he's pretending somehow Matsuda's death wasn't really a death at all, but he can't just sit there and read it and pretend there's nothing wrong - _

_Kyu Ishida__** - questioned 2 yrs ago re death Shinko Ishida, ruled accident - J claimed murder for life insurance - police info or connection to family? Cross-ref statements, info held on file. Left house of own accord, phone vanished (suggest call re crime?)**_

_Shuichi Aizawa__** - Accomplice involvement (links with earlier deaths too?) Mikami claimed to be acting for J. How long? Since beginning? Mikami not = police - two accomplices?**_

_Tayoshi Murao__** - internal investigation at Kugisawa re embezzlement suspected him, were about to take steps. All claim no discussion with outsiders. Suspect pool? Links with earlier deaths?**_

_Tomitetsu Masanaka__** - post-death, brother-in-law Shinji Osaki confessed planning robbery of First Capital Bank & that victim also involved with Sugimaru case 4 yrs ago. Spy saw connection? Or Osaki, or other associate, made J aware of crime?**_

_"Everyone knew about these people," he says. "Everyone knew what they'd done, or what they were going to do. We've followed up these leads and there's nothing."_

_"I still think we're missing something with Amane and Toyama," Aizawa says, calm, measured, and Ide makes himself take a deep breath and stop going to pieces just talking about the damn case. _

_"I don't see what," he says. "Toyama killed her parents. Sure. Fine. So Jigsaw knew about her from the get-go. That's how he found out about her. He probably had some kind of angel image of her in his head, this poor little orphan girl, and then he saw she was all about - clothes and music and... make-up - and he was disappointed because god forbid a nineteen-year-old girl have any frivolous interests -"_

_"And she survived his trap," Aizawa said. "She's the only one of these people - apart from us and Matsuda - who had nothing to do with any criminal activity, she was a young innocent girl who'd come back from an awful situation, and she actually made it out alive from his test. And then he went after her again. Doesn't that seem odd to you? She doesn't fit the pattern of a typical victim of his, she's the only one with a connection to an earlier death, and she proved to him she deserved to live or whatever."_

_"We don't know that it's such an anomaly," Ide says. "How many people have made it out alive? You and I are the only others, and we're - we're not exactly following his recommendations for living a good life, are we?"_

_Aizawa's face goes very blank. _

_"Far as I can see," Ide says, "Amane didn't change a thing about how she acted. So he took her again." He hates that he's being like this, point-scoring as if he doesn't want there to be any hope. The only consolation is that if he's right, he's in as much shit as Aizawa is. _

_"I don't see it," Aizawa says. "You read Amane's interview transcript. The way she was talking - and what she said to the press after - she was pretty much advertising him as a damn self-help technique. Why'd he punish her for that?"_

_Ide doesn't want to think about what Amane said, mainly because it makes him sick with fury he wasn't there to tell her to her face how stupid she was being. I__** don't think he's a bad person. He helped me when I needed it. I mean, both when he killed the man who murdered my parents and now… he wants to see people choose the right path. **__It makes him want to hit something. Still, it had come back to bite her later. She'd shown off her missing fingers like she was wearing a cute new ring, but when they'd found her, later, after the second trap, she'd been lying there sprawled, untidy, unposed, dead face seeming to wear a look of disbelief. Shock, like Matsuda had been shocked -_

_He's lost it now, he's walking through that corridor again and the air's pressing in on his lungs and there's no point in trying to have intelligent thoughts, there's no point in trying to think at all, he knows it won't work._

_"It's getting late," he says, glad again that Aizawa can't see him. "You should go."_

_"Ide -"_

_"What?" he snaps, and perhaps Aizawa knows very well what, because he doesn't answer, just starts feeling along the table for his phone._

ooo

For a long time, in the back of his mind, Ide has been asking himself _what if he gets me again? _

He's waking up and he can't tell where he is. He's lying down, but... but on cold, hard floor. Specks of grit and dirt, hard little lumps, under his back and his arms.

He'd only asked the question when he was very tired and couldn't stop himself. Or very angry and trying to pretend it wouldn't matter, that he'd be fine, that he'd coped once (except he hadn't, he'd screwed up, it was just luck that that had meant someone else's death and not his).

There's light above him, making his head ache. He aches all over actually. He... god, he must have... where did he go to sleep? Dozing at the kitchen table, pretending to work? Stumbling over to the couch and trying to convince himself he was just going to watch TV? Actually going to bed like a normal person even though he would've known it would just mean hours of staring at the light fitting and thinking too much? There must be something, there must be an explanation for where he is - that is, there must be a _good _explanation, a _boring _one, _come on -_ he was making coffee he didn't want to drink, and rereading notes he'd read a dozen times, and then his memory just stops -

Even when he was asking the question, he didn't really think that it would happen. He was being pessimistic. Or spitefully pleased that at least the bastard wouldn't be able to get to him again, not so much, not in the same way. He was counting his blessings, because it wasn't like there were very many of them.

Now he sees how stupid that was. He feels like he's shaking so much he can't move, can't even open his eyes for a few seconds. He tells himself _for god's sake, just look, maybe I drank so much I actually passed out in the kitchen - or the stairwell or something - just __**look**__ - _

He wrenches his eyes open and above him is a ceiling smeared with dust and mould, lit by a bare lightbulb. The light is harsh and so bright it seems almost black at the edges. It's definitely _not_ his apartment, or indeed any place that looks familiar. _A warehouse, _he's thinking, _something abandoned, _because the air is full of the smell of peeling paint, and dust, and mould. His head aches and there's a dry, sick taste at the back of his throat and, and he has to think, he has to stay calm, but his thoughts are sticking, _I can't - I can't - _

He's scrambling to his feet. From far away, he knows it's really, really stupid to start dashing around when there could be something inches away from you set to kill you if you trip over it, but it's like that's not important, what's important is to get out, to hide, to make this not be happening. Except he doesn't get very far, because something round his ankle pulls him up short and he stumbles, drops back onto his knees. It's a chain, he's barefoot and chained to the wall and that proves this isn't all in his head. It's not a mistake. It really is happening again. And all his bluffing that he'd be _fine _the next time is just that, bluffing.

He's clawing at the chain even as he can see it's pointless - it ends in a cuff which is tight around his ankle, there's no way he can just slide out of it but - _I __**can't**__ - _the metal is clammy and cold against his unmarked hand but the scarred one fumbles, and the sensations are faded on that one like he's reaching through water. He's losing it completely, basically, when he sees movement out of the corner of his eye, and hears someone clearing their throat, and the clank of more chain.

He looks round and sees what he should have noticed immediately. He's not the only one. The room is large and starkly lit from the one bulband sprawled at intervals along it, in the shadows, are more people. The person nearest to him is the only other one who's awake, though. A guy, young-looking, sitting up, blinking in the light. The next second, Ide realises who it is. Chief Yagami's son. Raito, that's it, the name stuck in his mind. Ide has never spoken to the kid before, just seen him a few times coming to or leaving the NPA offices, bringing a change of clothes or a message for his dad. But he knows how smart Raito is - a Tokyo University student who got the highest score in the country on the exam - how well-mannered he is, how much he admires his father. They stare at each other and Ide wonders what expression he's got on his face, because unease is filling Raito's and his eyes are darting about, noticing the grime, the other huddled shapes, the chain, and Ide thinks _you're going to die, oh, god, you're going to die and I've got to -_

"Where am I?" Raito says at last. He speaks quietly, but Ide hears his voice shake.

"I don't know. I... I think..." The terror is tangling up in Ide's throat, making it hard to speak, but he puts the effort in. "Your father... he's told you about - about Jigsaw - right?"

Raito goes pale, but his expression doesn't change much apart from his eyes widening.

"Yes," he says. "You - do you really mean -"

Ide doesn't see any need to argue his belief. Who the hell else can it be, really? He just shrugs, but the conversation has helped in one respect - he's not actually borderline hysterical any more. His heart's hammering away and he still feels if he thinks too much about the situation he'll throw up, but he can make himself look round the room, at the other people here. He knows most of them - he can spot Ukita, and Mogi, and then he sees Aizawa and it's like a kick to the ribs. _Not him too, not - _he could - he knows now that when it comes down to it he'll murder someone else to save his own skin no matter what they mean to him, he's proved it once, why Aizawa -

Curled up next to Aizawa, much closer than any of the other people - _players, _his mind writes in, _victims - _is a woman. Ide moves as close as the chain will let him and realises it's Eriko. The blood is pounding in his ears and if it wasn't for Raito he'd be losing it again, he can feel it. _Aizawa trusted me - he knew what happened to Matsuda and he trusted me to work with him anyway and now - if something happens to her it'll kill him and it'll be my fault - _

Raito says, his voice oddly light as if he can't quite believe it, "That's my father."

He's right. Soichiro Yagami is lying sprawled on his side in the far corner, glasses askew. Still, after the discovery of Aizawa's presence it's just the icing on the cake. Ide knows the Chief is disappointed in him - not _I'm going to make you feel bad because I'm a sanctimonious bastard_, just _you made a mistake and did something awful, and I wish you hadn't_. Which is almost worse because you can't hate someone for thinking that. Perhaps deep down you can think _I'd like to have seen you do any better, _but the Chief _would _have done better, everyone knows that.

And damn it, Soichiro Yagami really _is _a good man. The last thing he deserves is to be stuck in a death trap along with his only son.

"Do you know them?" Raito is saying to him. "The others?"

"Most of them. Ukita and Mogi and Aizawa -" He indicates. "They work with your father. That... that's Aizawa's wife. And him..." There's one more person, a young man - probably a few years older than Raito - with long dark hair and glasses, looking serious even asleep. "Him I don't recognise."

"Aizawa - he's the one who was - was blinded," Raito says, swallowing.

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry..." Raito actually smiles, awkwardly, like he doesn't have an excuse for forgetting manners. "I'm sure we must have met, if you know my father, but I don't..."

"I'm Ide." He snaps it, and then he turns away, on the pretext of studying the room again. He hears Raito breathe in, and then his voice, calm, diplomatic: "Oh, yes. Dad's mentioned you."

Ide so nearly says _I fucking bet he has_, but he manages to bite it back. Raito hasn't got anything to do with all of this, and he can't be blamed for drawing conclusions from what he's been told. Besides, Mogi and Aizawa are already stirring, which seems as good an excuse as any to drop the topic of who people are and what they might have done. He moves close to Aizawa, trying not to think about what it must be like to awaken in your worst nightmare and be unable to see any of it. "It's me. Things aren't looking good, I think we're -" He can't say it, it's so stupid, _hey, to get put in a deathtrap once is misfortune, but twice is just, is just - _Aizawa must have heard the edge of panic in his voice; he reaches out, feeling in that direction, opens his mouth - but then stops, and Ide realises why. His right wrist is handcuffed to Eriko's left.

He freezes - Ide tries not to shudder at what it must be like, forces his voice to stay calm. "It's okay. It's just cuffs. You're -"

Aizawa's movement has woken Eriko - she sits up, mumbles "Shuichi, what's going on -" and then Aizawa, dead white, is saying, _"No -" _and then he's shouting, "Why is she here? What the _hell _is she doing here?"

"I don't know, all right? Just calm down, we'll - we'll sort this out!"

_You know there's always a way out, he says, fiercely enough to convince himself as well as Matsuda, there's always a way out, we just have to find it. But if we panic, we really will die -_

_We really will die _

His heart is crashing against his ribs and he _can't, _he can't sort this out because he doesn't know how, he fucked up so badly last time and everyone knows it and he's just going to do it again -

He can't carry on speaking, but he sees Eriko grip her husband's hand and say to him, "_Listen - _I'm all right at the moment, for goodness sake don't lose your temper -" And Aizawa must be scared because instead of snapping back that he's not losing his temper he just goes quiet and pulls her close to him. He winces as he moves, and Ide realises he himself aches too - he can see his clothes are grimy, there are scratches on his arms and hands like he's been dragged across the floor. Probably he _was. _There's a stinging ache in his side too - perhaps he got himself caught on a nail, or a stray bit of razor wire or something - but the noise has woken the other people by now, and so he stops thinking about it. Raito is talking to his father; Ukita and Mogi are listening; the bespectacled man is kneeling, muttering to himself. Aizawa turns his head towards the sound.

"It's not just us," Ide tells him. "Ukita and Mogi are here, and the Chief, and his son - Raito, you know? And -"

"It's him," Eriko whispers, so quietly Ide can hardly hear her. She's staring at the bespectacled man. "The one who broke in before, the one who hurt Yumi -"

Aizawa goes still, and Ide sees him grit his teeth.

"You're sure?" he whispers back at last.

"Of course I'm sure!" Eriko is looking round the room again, more frantically, biting her lip. At last she swallows and turns back to Ide. He can see she's trying to put on a brave face, or at least a polite one, but fear keeps breaking through as she says, "Ide-san... you were awake before us. Have you - did you see anyone else? I - I mean, apart from the people here now?"

She's looking pleadingly at him and as he shakes his head he thinks he knows why. Aizawa has grabbed her hand and he's saying, "You mean - you mean she's not here -"

"Yumi and Youko?" Ide says, hating that he's the one spelling it out. "It might not - they could be at your house, if -"

"Youko's with Suzuki-san down the road," Eriko says. "Yumi was in the car - we'd just got back from - from the doctor's -" Ide fills in that what she means is _therapist _or _psychiatrist, _but Eriko's carrying on already, "We stopped at the house and I got out first and someone grabbed me from behind, put something over my face. Yumi and Shuichi were - were still in the car -" She's looking at Aizawa now but he just says, numbly, "I heard the door open and - and Yumi was crying, I thought... I thought she was just having one of her bad turns..."

Ide tries to feel suitably appalled at the realisation that his colleague's child has probably been kidnapped by a psychopath and that anything could be happening to her. He _is _appalled, he is sick with horror that this is happening, that Jigsaw's got the jump on them so successfully, that he's targeting everything that will hurt Aizawa most. But under all that there's - there's _resentment. _Aizawa and Eriko will survive this, they'll fight their way out because there's no other way to protect their daughter. And everyone else will think that it's so easy, they'll wonder again why Ide couldn't do the same -

There is clearly something wrong with him to even be thinking like this. He turns away from Aizawa and Eriko, tries to tune out the shaky conversations and whispers around him. There'll be a message, because there always is. There'll be a message and then he'll know the worst, at least, there won't be this waiting -

He's glancing round the room, at the rusted grilles and grimy walls, when he spots the TV set lurking at the corner of the ceiling. It's like it knows he's seen it because it suddenly switches on, with a loud hiss of static. More than one person yelps. Ide doesn't know if he makes a sound himself because as the screen glows into life, he can see the face of that puppet, smirking. Watching them from behind the glass. It looks them over as if it's waiting for them to calm down, but then the mouth begins to open and close, and the voice - the voice is the same as always:

_"Welcome... both to those I have met before and those whom I know only through observation. You all share a common fault; you all hold true to ideals and refuse to see their flaws. Now you can show me how your ideals stand up when innocent lives are at stake._

"_I want to play a game." _

Ukita curses under his breath, but everyone else is silent now.

_"To win the game, all you have to do is pass through seven rooms. In the seventh room, Yumi Aizawa will be waiting for you."_

The picture jolts, changes - now it's a grainy camera feed, showing a small figure standing in the middle of a dimly-lit room. It - yes, it's Yumi, but there's something around her face - another jolt, and it's a different camera, this one showing Yumi's terrified eyes above a band of metal -

"What is it?" Eriko whispers. "What is it, what's he put her in, what's he _done_?"

_"Yumi Aizawa holds the fate of this house in her hands. If her trap is sprung -" _Another camera angle, this one showing wires running from the back of the metal cage around Yumi's head, down her back and across the floor - "_this house and everyone in it will be blown to kingdom come. While she waits for you, she remains safe. If she loses her faith, or tries to flee, she starts her countdown - and yours as well. She won't wait forever, so you must get to her before her hope runs out."_

The picture changes back to the puppet, which shifts a little, turning towards the camera.

_"One of you is not what they seem," _the voice says,_ "but all of you have got to admit your faults if you want to be reborn."_

Ide feels his throat tighten and takes a slow, shaky breath, trying not to look at the others. The bastard's trying to get them to distrust him even more than they do already - get them to turn on him - or worse, get him to lose it again and do just what he did before.

And the worst of it is, he thinks he _might - _if it's that or die - he's not just going to let it happen - he's not just going to let someone else kill him -

_"Who will be the first to take a step towards enlightenment?" _the video is continuing._ "You can free others if you sacrifice your own impediments."_

The screen flickers off again. For a moment, everyone is silent before Aizawa says, hoarsely, "What did you see? What - what's he done to her?"

The dark-haired man clears his throat, and says, "In the past he has called it a... a reverse bear trap. A typical bear trap would lie open, and then, when triggered, spring shut - like a pair of jaws. This device, however, remains shut, and when triggered it flies open. It is wired into your daughter's jaws, and if she -"

Eriko screams. She screams and she scrambles to her feet to try and get to him and Ide grits his teeth and god damn it, it's not the first time he's heard someone sick with horror at something awful happening to their loved ones but it's the first time it's someone he knows, someone whose house he's been to dinner at, and she needs to stop, she needs to _stop screaming - _

"How can you do this?" the Chief is shouting. "How dare you do something like that to an innocent child?"

"She won't be harmed!" The man is pale - he cowers against the wall as if he really is just as much of a victim as the rest of them. "He has told you everything you need to know! She must wait for you, she must remain faithful that her parents will save her, and we must find our way to her if we are strong enough."

"Of course," Eriko says, her mouth curling into a smile. "Of course, that's what you do, isn't it? You follow along to check that everyone does what your master's told them to do. I should have -"

"No," the man says. "That's not my duty. I've been brought here to play the game, just like you. I don't want innocents dead -"

"That didn't stop you last time, did it? You shot her down in cold blood and now you're targeting her again, once wasn't enough for you -"

The man's face twitches, and he glares coldly up at her: "Don't you understand? That's why I'm here. I failed my god by harming your child. I asked to be tested, to atone for my sin. I - I did not know that she - that you would be involved again, but I intend to do my utmost to protect her -"

"_Protect_ her?" Eriko hisses. "Do you know how scared she's been? She can't even go to school, she's so terrified. You ruined her life to, what, make yourself feel like some kind of hero? If you really wanted to help her, you'd tell us where that bastard's keeping her!"

"You already know where she is, Aizawa-san. In the seventh room."

"He's right."

That's Raito Yagami, who's looking as pale and sick as the rest of them but sounds half-calm at least.

"Dad, you told me that - all the victims you've seen, they had the information they needed to survive. So all - all we need to do is go through the rooms, like the video said. He's - he's probably told the girl that she just has to wait."

"Yeah, okay," Ukita says, "but how exactly are you proposing we _get _to the rooms? Seeing as we're all chained to the wall right now?"

Raito smiles, shakily. "It... it said, _who'll be the first to take the step, _didn't it? And that one of us could free the others?" He's looking around the room. "There'll be something - some kind of key, or..."

_Or something else. _Ide can fill in the blank, and he bets everyone else can too. But still, they're all looking around. All trying to kid themselves if they just follow the clues then everything will be fine.

"Look, _there -_" Eriko is pointing to above the door, where the ceiling meets the wall. Crawling along the edge, half in shadow, is a length of chain nailed to the wall, and hanging off it are a bunch of keys.

They all stare at it for a moment and then Ukita scowls and says, "Well, that's brilliant, isn't it. How exactly are we meant to get hold of those?"

"Perhaps if - could we throw something at it?" Mogi says.

"Like what? We don't even have shoes." Ukita stands up - he's nowhere near able to grab the keys but he's squinting anyway, just to get a closer look. Ide finds himself resenting even this, like Ukita's so confident he can spot something no one else can.

"And you'd need to lift the chain off those nails," he's saying now. "It's threaded through the keyring, they're not just going to fall off."

"Then... there must be something else we have to find," Raito says. "That's correct, isn't it?" he adds, glancing at the dark-haired man. "You seem to... to know how Jigsaw operates. What's your name, by the way?"

"Mikami. Teru Mikami." He actually bows a little, as if this is some kind of business meeting. "And yes, you are right. He will give us the information we need. The tools."

Ide tries to focus on studying his surroundings but the stupid thing is, his instincts are actually screaming at him not to. Like that they'll find it, a tape or a syringe or, or a gun and it will tell them what to do and then they'll have no excuse not to do it. He'll have no excuse, except that he's a coward and he doesn't think he can go through with... with whatever it'll be. He glances over at Aizawa, who's sitting, head slumped, staring sightlessly at the grimy floor. Intellectually, he knows it must be horrific not to be able to do anything to help, but all he can think is, _you'll have an excuse - when we work it out, you'll have an excuse not to - hell, maybe you won't even be able to, if you can't see - _

He turns away, rests his head against the wall, gazes up at the filthy lights. Cobwebs and tiny insects are silhouetted against the glare. Even the ceiling's covered in dirt, dull marks that could be rust or mould or - well, yeah, blood. Spots and lines making up nothing -

Except that suddenly -

He swallows. "Hey..." His throat is so dry no one hears him at first, and he wants to leave it that way, but he makes himself call properly, and then say it: "Isn't that a flower drawn on the ceiling?"

They all glance up, and Raito nods. "It looks like it's meant to be a lotus, don't you think? That would make sense, if we're meant to be searching for... for enlightenment."

Ukita rolls his eyes. "What next, find a cicada for luck? Mogi, can you reach it? Maybe there's something behind it -"

Mogi's already getting up. "Yes - there's a panel - nailed over something else -" He's wrenching at it, and with a creak and a scatter of rust, it comes free and he's reaching warily into a roughly-hewn hole in the ceiling.

"Be careful -" Aizawa is beginning, but Mogi is already reaching around inside the hole. Ide waits for something horrific to happen, but all that does is that Mogi's eyes widen, and then, gingerly, he's easing a hacksaw out of the gap.

Actually, that's quite horrific enough, when you think about what it means.

"For... for the chains?" Eriko says, but her voice is quiet and flat as if even she doesn't believe she's actually correct.

"We can try," the Chief says. "Mogi-san, would you pass it over here?"

"Dad..." Raito begins. "Look, we don't have to - to go along with - I mean, there's got to be other options -"

"It's a saw," Eriko is explaining to Aizawa. "A little one - I suppose one person gets... gets themselves free..." She swallows. "Then they can reach the keys. These chains have locks on them, so..."

"You can free others if you sacrifice your own impediments." Aizawa rubs a hand across his face like he's trying to get rid of the thought. "Seems pretty clear, doesn't it?"

"I don't... I don't think this is going to make much of an impact on the chain," Chief Yagami is saying, slowly like he's testing the idea out. "To be honest, I don't want to try. If this breaks, then we're all trapped here."

"Then what are we meant to do?" Ukita yells. "Wait for someone to volunteer to chop off their own foot? Draw lots? We can't just - we _can't -_"

"This is Jigsaw," says Aizawa, his voice numb. "Of course you can. If you really want to live." He's shaking. "I... I should... she's my daughter, I should..."

"Nonsense," the Chief says, and he actually sounds so businesslike that for a moment Ide can kid himself that the situation's under control. "You're handicapped enough as it is."

"We can - we could try and get to the keys some other way," Raito says. "There must - can't we -" He glances from his father to the keys, his face suddenly drawn-in and blank as if he's just now realising how bad the situation is. Ide feels viciously glad that someone else is getting it. Although that's not fair, Ukita and Mogi both look sick and Eriko and Aizawa are clearly falling to bits and if the Chief's staying calm then that's good, someone's got to.

"You're not seriously suggesting you're going to do it," Ukita says. "Hell, if someone's going to, why not _him?_" Scowling in Mikami's direction. "He's the one who got us into this. Or - or - I don't know, someone else who deserves it more than you."

He looks over at Ide. The worst thing is, there isn't even a hint that he's just stressed and picking a fight, or exaggerating because he really doesn't want to see the Chief hurt. He really means it, he wants to see Ide being the one to suffer because Ide's the one who deserves it.

Ide feels like something's closing round his ribs. It isn't like he can argue against it, is it? He killed someone in cold blood because he didn't want to die. Someone who (he's pretty sure) trusted him.

But it's not like he says any of this out loud, because there is no way he's going to volunteer for what the Chief is proposing to do. He just stares back, too scared to actually refuse, but determined not to look away, not to look ashamed -

"Oh, typical," Ukita says. "You're the one who's really got something to make up for here, you know. Though I should've guessed you wouldn't have the guts, not after what you did before."

Everyone is looking. Everyone is looking and mostly they don't even look surprised. Ide tries to take a breath and then he says, "I don't... notice you volunteering either."

"I didn't murder someone else to save my own skin," Ukita snaps. "And you know what, I'm not passing information to the bastard either. Isn't this the way you operate, pretend you're in as much shit as the rest of us but hold back on actually doing anything? I'm just saying, if you did this I might actually start thinking you're not just playing us - god, it even _said _someone here's faking it -"

"Give it a rest!" Aizawa snaps the words out as if to nobody. "This isn't helping, okay?"

"Hey, it's your kid whose life's on the line! He may have managed to convince you that he's _so cut up _about what happened but that doesn't mean shit if he's the only one to make it out alive, _again_ -"

"Stop it," Eriko says, her voice shaking. "Stop it, this won't _help - _I - oh god, I never said I..." She gasps for breath, presses her hand to her mouth. "I can -" But she doesn't look like she can, she looks like she's going to be sick. Aizawa grabs her roughly round the shoulders: "No. No, if anyone does it, it's not going to be you, okay?" He shudders, clearly thinking that he's basically said they have to make someone else do it. But no one calls him on it, of course they don't, because he's a _hero, _because he made it out alive before, because he's brave enough to actually do what needs to be done -

Ide can feel Ukita still watching him and he closes his eyes like he's kidding himself that makes it all not real. He closes his eyes and he's trying to make himself think _say you'll do it - it'll help - it'll prove you're not what they say - _It's not working, it's not working even slightly, and all he can think is, _I can't - I can't - _

Eriko is still crying and Aizawa is saying something else, everyone is speaking at once and the sound roars around him and then it reshapes itself into Chief Yagami saying, "Stop it. I've made the decision."

"Dad..." Raito sound incredibly young, and scared, and Ide actually doesn't hate him for it. Raito may be a super-smart Tokyo-U student, but he's still a kid underneath. The Chief doesn't look at him. He's taking off his tie, binding it round his leg. _Makes sense, _Ide thinks, like anything about this does. He makes himself keep watching, at least, he's not so much of a coward he's going to pretend it's not happening. The Chief swallows, picks up the hacksaw again. Ide can't really see what he's doing, the - the angle he's going to approach at or whatever. _Oh god - _

He _hears _it, though, a wet sound that crawls right down his throat and hits his guts, and the Chief drawing breath and then he groans with pain, over and over and, "Please," Eriko is whispering, "Please, please..." but she never says more than that, she never explains who she's pleading to. Ide wants the Chief to give up, scream, fling the saw away from him, just to make the noises stop, just so they can pretend for a bit longer that things aren't this bad, but he doesn't - glassy-eyed, face dead white and shining with sweat, he keeps on, huddled over the wound he's making, and then all at once he drops the saw and then there's the rattle of chain and Ide sees it, smeared with blood but lying empty on the floor and the Chief drags himself away from it, towards the door. His foot is - well, it isn't completely gone. It trails, a bloody mess, leaving red across the floor. They should be saying something, they should be offering to help, or - or thanking him at least, but they're not, they're all just staring, as finally he reaches the door, clutches at it to haul himself up, grabs at the chain and slides the keys free - then he's throwing them across to Mogi, who catches them, fumbles to free himself and then hurries over to the Chief, grabs him to stop him falling.

"Shit," Ukita is saying. "Shit, shit, for god's sake do something, bandage him up, _do _something -" There's that, and the blood, and the Chief slumped, but the keys are being passed round - Eriko is the one who slides them across to Ide, and if she pauses for a moment that's probably just his imagination. His hands feel grimy and dusty, and they're damp, the key slides about in his fingers. But he unlocks the chain and struggles to his feet and he would run over to the Chief, help to support him, say something, but Mikami is already there, taking the man's other arm across his shoulders. Eriko has got to the door, is trying the keys in its lock. After a moment it falls open, and she has grabbed Aizawa's hand and dashed through it. It occurs to Ide a second too late that running into the unknown here is a really stupid idea, and he pushes past the others, calling, "Wait -" The door leads out into a dark corridor with another door on the opposite wall. Eriko has just wrenched it open. She and Aizawa step inside, and it slams shut behind them.


	5. Shame

_It's a dark, rainy day, which seems so appropriate Eriko would laugh at it if she felt in any way like smiling about her situation. Her hair's still damp from when she went out to take Youko to school; it'll dry flat, she can tell. Something like that shouldn't matter - her husband's colleagues must have seen women in far worse states - but all the same, she could do without one more thing sliding out of her control, without even her hair being a mess. If she's going to have a - a blind husband and a shut-in daughter, she'd at least like to be one of those women who can remain fiercely smart and stylish as their lives crumble - _

_Oh god, she's going to cry again. She grits her teeth and focuses on pouring the tea, on the hot, comforting smell. Reflected in the kettle she can just see Yumi, huddled in the armchair with her knees to her chest; Shuichi, sitting bolt upright, the bruising round his eyes visible even from here; and Mogi, large and silent and very carefully __**not **__glancing from one invalid to another but evidently finding the whole situation incredibly uncomfortable anyway. _

_Okay. No. No crying, crying will not help. She's tested it. She has cried so hard her throat ached and her skin was sore from the salt and when she stopped everything was still the same. What will help is being a good witness. Providing the police with evidence. Getting that bastard hunted down and locked up and hanged for what he's done -_

_She carries the tea tray back over to where the others are sitting, places each cup carefully, smiles. Mogi nods thanks; Yumi doesn't even seem to notice the hot chocolate put in front of her; Shuichi hears the clink of the cups and turns his head and Eriko puts her hand on his to guide him to the drink and he snatches it away: "I don't need babying, all right?"_

_The anger snaps back, this time directed at her husband, and if Mogi weren't there - and Yumi of course - she might let it out, but as it is she just breathes out and says, "All right." She knows what'll happen. He'll let the tea grow cold and not drink it because his pride won't let him risk knocking it over. She wants to scream at him that he's being pathetic and childish, but she can't do that, either._

_"Moig-san," she says, instead, sitting down. "You wanted to talk to me and Yumi?"_

_Mogi nods. "I know you've told us what happened, but... we thought it might be helpful to discuss it again." _

_Eriko nods, but all at once she really doesn't want to, everything inside her is shouting at her to find an excuse and walk away. There's something shameful in having to keep saying it, that __**a man rang the doorbell and when I answered he forced the door open - he had a gun - he told me not to scream - **__to be one of those women to whom bad things happen - to have done nothing to stop any of it - _

_Of course Yumi doesn't say anything, just grips her knees more tightly and huddles back into the chair. Which would be fine and understandable if it was the first time she'd shut down like this, but she did it the first time she had to go upstairs alone, when they went to the shops and she saw a tall dark-haired man in the checkout queue, when Eriko didn't hear her calling from the other end of the house... and Eriko just wants to grab her by the shoulders and shout at her __**you have to get a grip, you can't let them do this to you! **__She wants her cheerful daughter back, the one who crams for tests the night before and gives her sister piggyback rides. She wants Yumi to fight her way out of this, show that what happened to her wasn't so bad, wasn't a nightmare at all -_

_But Yumi is silent and won't even look at them, and so Eriko has to be the one to start speaking. Mogi must be picturing other women who've had to tell these kind of stories. They probably all blur into one; one screaming, sobbing woman, broken, broken into. Maybe he's thinking about how they all look the same. Or how they all behave as if they're the only one. Or how they let it happen because they were so scared. Maybe he's thinking she couldn't have cut out her own eyes to save her family. Maybe he's thinking she is being selfish by getting so upset when her husband had it all so much worse..._

_Crying and anger again, both of them, and she takes a sip of too-hot tea but it doesn't help, it just echoes the burning in her eyes, and she wants someone else to be blamed and so she says, "He told me that Shuichi didn't value us any more. That he'd become obsessed with catching Jigsaw instead."_

_Shuichi tenses, grits his teeth. God, he can't even see that she's watching him for a reaction. Mogi can, of course, but quite frankly Eriko has given up trying to convince him that her family is anything close to holding together. _

_"Did you say anything in response?" he says, now._

_Eriko remembers screaming, struggling to get to the man, blindly furious not so much because of the criticism of her husband but because something private, something she'd quietly resented in her own mind had suddenly been hauled out and presented as fact as if everyone knew about it. __**How dare you,**__ she'd screamed, as if he'd been spying on her. __**How dare you.**_

_"No," she says. "I... I was too scared to say very much at all, really." Mogi's probably heard that a lot, from all those other victims. She wonders why she didn't take the chance to remind Shuichi that she stood up for him, that he should be grateful to her. Probably because after what he did, nothing she can do will ever be enough. _

_Or because __**victims**__ don't try and point-score off other people._

_Shuichi says, abruptly - actually, it's not abrupt, it's just that he doesn't turn to look at the person he's speaking to, or wait to see if he's got their attention - he says, "That proves it couldn't have been Ide passing information from the police, right? He would never have come out with - with something like that."_

_There's a pause, like Mogi wants to say __**it's obvious to everyone that you were working yourself into the ground**__, but instead he just replies, "Jigsaw could have made the observation himself. Or, if this perpetrator - this... accomplice of his - has links to the police himself, perhaps..."_

_Aizawa scowls. "No one in the NPA's recognised the description."_

_"No, not yet."_

_"Talk all you want," Aizawa says, belligerently like he's looking to pick a fight, "but there's no way in hell Ide would have had anything to do with this. I don't care what any of you think. He knows me, he knows my family, he wouldn't... he..."_

_Mogi nods, and then clearly realises that that's pointless now. Eriko finds her mouth curling into a smile. Stupid amusement that someone else is struggling with basic things like this when talking to her husband. Oh, god, what's wrong with her? Why can't she be angry with Jigsaw and his accomplice, why does it keep spilling over onto everything else? Actually, why be angry at all? Why not be a good, caring wife, focusing on making her husband and child better? Why does she want to say something awful like __**I'm glad you're so concerned for Ide-san's welfare, a shame you can't extend the same courtesy to us**__? _

_Perhaps, she thinks, her thoughts running round and round inside her head now, perhaps Ide __**had **__told someone something - perhaps he'd noticed how little Shuichi seemed to realise his family existed - perhaps it had been obvious to everyone all along - she doesn't know if she even thinks it's __**true,**__ it's just that __**someone**__ clearly noticed - _

_She wants to get up, make some more tea, but that will only make it obvious to Mogi at least how uncomfortable she is. A good wife, a good mother, would be fully engaged in this interview, determined to provide as much information as she could to catch the killer. She takes a deep breath, makes herself say, "Do you want me to carry on?" It comes out sounding sarcastic, like Shuichi couldn't give a damn about her testimony, but at the moment that almost seems like a good thing._

ooo

Eriko steps through the doorway and she doesn't know what she expected to find. She thinks really she was hoping for nothing. For five empty rooms to walk across, no blood, no chains, no tests -

For a moment, this room really does seem like that. She can see across to the other side of it, at any rate, but there are - it's like cracks in her version, spider webs across reality or pencil scribbles like something in one of Youko's drawings.

Only it's not scribbles, it's -

_Oh, god. No. __**No, **__it can't - I can't -_

Shuichi's hand is clammy in hers and she feels the handcuff tight and cold across her wrist and wonders why she didn't think of trying to saw through that at least. Another stupid mistake. As if she can afford to make mistakes, as if none of this matters. She let that psychopath take Yumi, _I was supposed to be looking after her, we were supposed to be making things better - he's going to kill her, he - _

She bites her lip, hard, and she realises she's gripping Shuichi's hand even more tightly.

"What is it?" he whispers to her. "What can you see? I heard the door shut -"

On the other side of the room there's another door, and hanging above it, she thinks she can just see the glint of a key. The right-hand wall isn't solid, it's a mesh - as she looks over at it, she sees Ukita and Ide and the others come into view behind it. The corridor must run alongside the room. With a sick jolt, she realises she could have avoided this. If she hadn't run ahead - if she'd just waited -

Except that someone has to go through here, don't they? Someone has to get that key. Yumi in that _thing, _wired up and poised to be torn apart -

_Don't think about it - just don't - don't think about any of it -_

But she _has _to think about it because she has to get the key, and to get it, she has to -

From the other side of the mesh, she hears someone whisper, "Oh, my god..." and Shuichi grips her hand painfully and snaps, Damn it, Eriko, tell me what's going on!" and she takes a breath - the air tastes musty - and says:

"It's wire. The room's full of razor wire."

She looks down, at her bare feet. Inches from her toes, the first loop of wire begins. Then another and another. Above her head, it curves into archways, pressed against the low metal ceiling. A tunnel, a pathway, like a forest in a fairytale. She thinks of walking through a forest, of how you have to push branches out of the way, how they brush your arms, your face -

"We have to..." Shuichi begins, and then, "You have to..."

"All right." Yes. All right. It's obvious what she has to do, after all. She just has to... be careful. (And isn't it still better than what happened in the last room? What happened to Shuichi before?) "Listen, I'm going to... you go first, walk backwards, and I'll direct you." She turns to face him, takes his other hand in hers. He looks sick and pale and he's still gripping her tightly but his eyes don't move, don't even notice the wire. "It'll... it'll be fine. There's room to walk."

He nods.

"Listen," he says more quietly, "I didn't - I never thought that you and the girls would - I thought if - that it'd just be me -"

She nearly loses her temper properly then, screams at him _what the hell did you think would happen? He targeted us as well last time, didn't he? He was more or less warning you off and you didn't listen, you just couldn't bear to admit you couldn't play the hero any more, you were having too much fun acting the private detective while I actually managed everything that would __**help**__ - _

All of that flares up in her mouth but as it does, she thinks of Yumi again, huddled in a ball on the floor, sobbing, _don't go out, please, Mummy, don't leave me - _

No matter how justified she feels, starting a fight won't help. In fact, it will only make it much more likely that Yumi will end up dead.

"Just walk backwards," she says. She sounds nervous, but that's good, it means he won't hear how furious she is. "About three steps and you'll be - be in there. You'll... you'll feel it, on the floor... if you keep your feet flat maybe you can step over it before it causes much damage."

"Okay."

He starts to walk. On his second step he hisses with pain and his fingers dig into hers. She looks down and as he moves his foot she sees a drop of blood, hanging on one of the teeth of the nearest coil of wire.

"It's okay!" he snaps. "It's just a nick. Tell me where to walk. Keep going?"

"Yes - you need to keep lower - say four more steps, then it starts bending round to the left -"

They're inside the nests of wire now; everywhere she looks, she sees tiny silver blades, hanging in the air like flies all around them. _Trapped. _They're in the heart of it already and the only way to get back out is this slow pace, every step having to be spoken. She tries to think about that, about the speaking, about making sure that they both watch their heads, their hair and clothes. Even so, she puts a foot wrong more than once - sharp, wet cuts, blood making the soles of her feet sticky, her blouse snagging and little scratches welling up on her arms. Shuichi's suffering even more than her, he's leaving bloody footprints by now and she can hear his breathing shake, feel him gripping her hands more tightly. She's thinking _good, serves him right, serves him right for putting us here, _and she honestly doesn't know if she means it or if it's just a way to find some kind of bright side. She doesn't want to be this angry. Tears are stinging her eyes that she is, but - for god's sake, why couldn't he _see_? He _knew _Jigsaw knew about his family! _The maniac knows where we live, for god's sake! _Did he never even think about it?

She glances over at the mesh and sees Ide, watching them, looking pale and sick. It would be a lot easier to blame him - convince herself he talked her husband into this retribution kick because he needed to make himself feel better about what he'd done - but Shuichi rarely gets _talked into _anything. She certainly hasn't had much luck with it, at any rate. She tries to tell herself _you're just mad because you're scared - because you're tired, because they knocked you out - _her head still aches a little, and the pain in her feet echoes a duller stab just below her ribs, like she caught herself on the wire earlier and didn't notice_ - _but the anger doesn't go away; it boils sullenly underneath everything else.

They have almost got a shuffling, crouched rhythm going - she steps between the wire on tiptoes like she's dancing - when, from the far corner, she sees something flicker.

Another TV screen. The puppet, watching them, smirking at their progress. "Wait," she whispers, and at the same time its mouth begins to open and close and that voice echoes through the room again, speaking to her this time:

_"I had hoped that after the events of the last few weeks you would have begun to forge your own path in life, rather than following your husband's trail. So far, you've let me down, but now I'm giving you the chance to be the leader. You can trust your husband's judgement if you want, but I think you'll agree with me that it's only led the two of you into tangles up until now. Why don't you try making the choices under pressure for a change?"_

And then, just for a moment, Yumi, pleading silently at them from the rusted metal around her face -

Shuichi swallows, and even though he wasn't looking at her anyway he turns away, like he knows that what's being said is true. Eriko bites back fury at him and Jigsaw both, they think it's so easy, they think all she's there to do is follow -

From above them, there's a loud, groaning creak, and the ceiling lowers itself an inch or two towards them.

"What -" Shuichi begins, and from the other side Ukita yells, "Get the hell out of there, you two!"

Another creak. The topmost coils of wire are bulging out. Eriko wants to scream but she's so scared that it's blocking every sound, every thought in her head. He's going to kill them - crushed and ripped apart both, they can't -

_"Tell me what to do!" _Shuichi yells at her.

That sparks off the anger - childish rage, _how dare he expect me to sort it out - _and she's screaming back, "I don't know! I don't _know!_" But even as she says it she's stumbling forward, pushing him with her, and he goes with it, both of them staggering round the curve in the path - another creak, and the ceiling falls so that now he has to stoop, and he realises properly now, cursing as they run. Her feet are torn to ribbons, every step hurts and her clothes keep catching on the wire like something's grabbing at her - she's tearing herself free and she's crying, stupid hysterical sobs and she dimly realises the others are shouting the directions and he's yelling at her to stop it, to stop crying, even though he sounds terrified half out of his mind himself.

Another creak. Around them, lengths of wire are snapping under the strain like gunshots going off. One flies apart inches in front of her face, and she wonders what the hell they'll do if the next one is close enough to hit her in the eyes. _Die, is what we'll do, _her mind fills in. She has to crouch now, and round another corner and the key and the exit are _there, _just beyond the next turn, and she screams _left, turn left, it's there -_

He wrenches them round too quickly and she falls against the wire.

She feels it on her clothes first, like dozens of tiny hands clutching at her, and she screams again, she tries to shake herself free only - only one arm is -

It doesn't _hurt, _she notices, it's the horror of realising exactly what's happened -

Someone is saying _oh god, oh god _over and over and the mesh is being shaken, they're trying to break it down, and she hears the ceiling groan above them and there is blood running down her arm. There is a lot. Very sudden. Very bright.

And then Shuichi grabs her by the shoulders, rips her off the wire like she's a doll and wrenches her forward, running now for the exit. Oh _god. _Oh god it hurts and she's screaming at him _you bastard _although maybe it's not him she's yelling at, maybe it's Jigsaw. Still more blood. Someone yells _the key _and her ears are ringing with the pain but the key is right there in front of them now, dangling from the lowered ceiling, and she makes a grab at it with the wrist that's handcuffed -

She clutches it for a moment and then it slips out of her fingers. She doesn't think, she dives for it, sending him falling, and she claws among the wire and her fingers are slippery with blood but thank god, she doesn't think _I can't, _she doesn't think _what if, _she just snatches up the key again and then - another groan, they can't even stand now - she's scrambling forward, the wire scraping at her shins, her face, her arms -

The door in front of her. Bolts. Fingers too sticky to get a grip. But because of the cuffs, his hand is right next to hers, he manages to work out what she's trying to do and he grabs the bolt, wrenches it back and the door swings open and then they're falling through and being dragged at the same time.

The corridor is dark and full of people and Eriko lies on the floor and then someone - Mogi - is dropping down next to her - "Let me see your arm -"

There's a dim, grimy lightbulb above them. Mogi tells the others to stand back and he gently helps her sit up so they can see.

Eriko looks and then she quickly stops looking because if she doesn't she thinks she'll faint. It looks like she's wearing a red elbow-length glove, there's that, and then there's the way the light and shadow fill the deep dark wounds in her arm and the way she thinks she spots a glimpse of _sides _to them, cross-sections into her flesh. Mogi doesn't say anything, but neither does anyone else. After a few moments, he pulls off his jacket, starts wrapping it tightly round the cuts.

Shuichi is saying, "How bad is it? Are you all right?" and at the same time he's gripping her hand again but this time she wrenches hers free. Even so, she's shaking so much that it's hard to make her body do anything. Shaking, and remembering how she went to pieces, how she just screamed and cried as if she really did expect him to sort it out for her.

"You just tore me off some razor wire, how bad do you _think _it is?" she shouts at him, and she's crying even as she speaks.

"What - you're blaming _me_ for this? You were screaming -" He stops, swallows, but she doesn't want him trying to make her feel sorry for him and maybe he senses that because he snaps, "Everyone was yelling we had to get out, we had to hurry and you said we were close, I was desperate - I didn't want to hurt you, I didn't know -"

"Oh yes, you didn't want to _hurt _us, that's why you kept making yourself a target for the serial killer! I should have worked it out!"

"What, so I was supposed to just - let him get away with it?" Shuichi yells, and he is more angry than she remembers ever seeing him. "After what he did? You'd be happy knowing he's walking the streets, Eriko, is that what you're saying?"

"I'm _saying _you weren't meant to be on this case at all! You were invalidated out, remember? You and Ide just couldn't bear to admit you'd lost -"

"Okay, stop it!" Ukita snaps, and Eriko's pathetically grateful to him. She can feel all the stuff she _could _say bubbling up hot and sticky as the blood and she _wants _to say it, she wants to finally get it out, and she knows full well that it could well be fatal.

"There's a time and place for the domestic," Ukita carries on, "and this isn't it. Hey, who's got the hacksaw? Let's get that cuff off you, no wonder you're losing it with each other." He's stumbling over the words a bit and she sees him rub a hand over his face.

Chief Yagami is slumped against the wall, seeming barely conscious. Raito hands Ukita the hacksaw - his face is pale and set, but there's a flicker of anger underneath it. But only a flicker. Nothing like Eriko's own shrieks of rage earlier. The anger's cooling now. She's just very tired. Little flickers of pain are starting to flare up from all the cuts on her face and legs and arms. Shuichi will be feeling the same - his face is flecked with blood - but she doesn't care.

Ukita gets her and Shuichi to place their hands flat on the floor, pull the handcuff chain tight. It's not difficult to cut it apart - with a jingle of links, Eriko finds herself falling away from her husband, and there's only the cold band around her wrist left.


	6. Blood and Music

(A/N: This chapter's title is from a song by Fixmer/McCarthy. (Last chapter's was technically from a song by Drowning Pool, but as it was only one word I kind of felt they didn't necessarily need the credit for it.))

_Mogi is not at all sure he's the best person to be interviewing Misa Amane. They need someone to establish a rapport with her, which has never been Mogi's strong point. Insofar as he __**has **__a strong point interacting with witnesses, it's asking the right questions and keeping quiet until they blurt out something they didn't plan to. And while Amane may seem silly and chatty, she's used to dealing with the media. She certainly hadn't said anything unplanned in the first police interview she'd had. Not that he'd thought she was keeping anything back; just that even when she'd become tearful, there'd been a sense of someone keeping a grip on what they chose to show._

_But then, her parents were murdered less than a year ago. It's hardly surprising that she has experience of keeping control of herself._

_The apartment door swings open and Amane is standing there, singing out a greeting as if she was expecting him. She's wearing black elbow-length gloves. The last three fingers of the right one have been cut off, Mogi sees - still, it's not like she needs them. And perhaps she prefers that to having them flopping about and reminding her of the damage she's sustained._

_"Do you have a moment to talk?" he says, showing her his ID, and she nods, scurries back to let him inside: "Would you like some tea?"_

_He shakes his head. Her apartment is small and she's made it feel even more so by painting the walls dark red. The curtains are half-drawn, sunlight spilling dustily into the room, and there is an unexpected number of cuddly toys and skulls watching him. _

_"So-oo, how can Misa help?" She's leaning against the end of the kitchen cupboard, obviously amused by his glances at her decor. "Or - or did you find him? Jigsaw-san?" She actually looks fearful for a moment, as if she thinks Jigsaw would blame her._

_Mogi shakes his head again. "We're following several leads," he says, the usual line. Amane nods, distracted-seeming now, and picks at the hole in her glove where her fingers aren't. _

_"We wanted to check whether he had contacted you again. Or if you remembered anything more about what happened." The sentences sound heavy, plodding words from an unimaginative official Amane will have no reason to open up to, but he doesn't know what else to say apart from the truth. He wishes that he'd brought someone like Matsuda with him, someone who can talk without worrying about it. _

_Amane frowns, shakes her head. "Not really. Misa told the police everything. And as for him getting in touch, well..." She flicks her hair back. "I don't know if he would. I mean, I did what he wanted me to, right?" A sideways glance. "If he did contact me, it'd be because I hadn't showed him I'd learnt from what happened. And I did, I totally did. If he stuck me in another trap, then... well, I suppose I'd deserve it, wouldn't I?" She's watching him, a small smile on her face, like she's trying to make him uncomfortable. It doesn't surprise him - he has that effect on some girls - but he says anyway, "No one deserves to be put through the things he makes his victims do."_

_"The man who killed my parents did," Amane says, and all at once she's not looking at Mogi, she's staring at the floor, her face hidden by her hair. "I know, I know, he had a fair trial, you can't take the law into your own hands, but I don't care. I wouldn't mind seeing Jigsaw-san again. I'd thank him."_

_She looks up at him - the smile is back. "Hey, you never know. Perhaps I will! It's a small world, after all."_

_Mogi stares at her. Is she just chattering, with no deeper meaning behind it? Or... is she trying to say that she knows something? _

_"Do you think you will?" he says, carefully._

_"Who knows?" Amane says, widening her eyes. "Misa won't go looking for him, of course. But if Jigsaw-san wants to come to Misa... that's his choice, isn't it?"_

_"If he gets in contact with you, would you tell us?"_

_She giggles, but she doesn't answer. _

_"Amane-san... it could be extremely dangerous if he shows interest in you again. You managed to do what he wanted the last time, but there's no guarantee you'd be able to a second time."_

_"Oh? Misa's tougher than you think, Mr Detective." Another flick of the hair. "Misa can do anything, if..." A pause, and then, as if she'd been going to say something else, "If that's what she has to do." _

_"You shouldn't have to, though."_

_She shrugs, as if she disagrees but doesn't want to discuss it. _

_"Has Mogi-san thought about what Jigsaw-san might be like?" she says, instead. Her voice is almost teasing, like the question will reveal something about Mogi himself instead._

_"Yes, the police are trying to build up a picture of him," he says. Misa widens her eyes, __**tell me more**__, but Mogi says instead, "What do you think he's like?"_

_Misa puts a finger to her mouth in a __**ssh **__gesture, giggles. "Hmm. Well, clearly he thinks a lot about right and wrong, don't you think? He really wants to punish the bad guys." She starts counting off on her fingers. "And he's obviously pretty smart, otherwise you guys would've caught him by now. And..." She goes to count a third factor, stops theatrically as she runs out of fingers. Mogi finds himself staring, and quickly looks back up at her face. She laughs, like she only performed the action to unnerve him. "And __**I **__reckon he's quite young. Old people tell you that you can't do anything to change the world, they tell you that you have to put up with things and they let bad stuff happen. People my age, we don't get that yet. We just want to do our own thing, right?" She winks. _

_It's an interesting suggestion, actually. He can feel her watching him, waiting for his reaction. He says, "Perhaps. But we also think he's quite well-off. It takes money to put together the scenarios he does. And -"_

_"Young people are all too busy spending their money on college and drinking?" Misa says. "Uh-huh. Maybe you're right, Mogi-san." She's still smiling, though, as if she's humouring him, watching him play detective. "Don't worry. If Jigsaw-san says anything to me, I'll totally let you guys know." _

Mogi hadn't been sure he believed her. There'd been the satisfaction she'd had in being in control of the conversation, in using the hint of further information to flirt with him. And more than that - she'd been so unbothered about having to chop off her own fingers, so unperturbed by the thought of Jigsaw still being out there. Later, when they'd found her corpse - fingernails torn from scrabbling at a locked door, wrist raw from struggling against the handcuffs trapping her in a burning room - part of him hadn't been able to believe it, unable to take in that her confidence had been misplaced after all.

Of course now, when he is getting to experience first-hand just how terrifying the situation is, he's amazed that she managed to survive one trap, if not two.

He and Teru Mikami are helping the Chief stagger down the corridor. It's dark - there are one or two flickering lights (Mogi keeps thinking he sees that puppet's face in the shadows) but the Chief is slumping, hardly carrying any of his own weight, and Mogi can feel that his skin's clammy, his breathing quick and shallow. There's a faint coating of blood over everything now; Mogi can feel it sticky on his fingers, rasping on his shoes. The sleeping gas or whatever has left him aching, still only half-conscious; he feels caught out, stupid. As if he saw so many people dead in traps like this and never once considered that he might end up the same way. Even after what happened to Aizawa and Ide and Matsuda, he still thought - he still thought that it wouldn't happen to _him, he _didn't attract attention...

Ahead of them, the others have stopped. Mogi can see it's the same as before - another door, and then the corridor leading round to the right so everyone else can watch. Mikami is already sinking down to rest Chief Yagami against the wall before hurrying over to the door. He stops in front of it, traces his fingers over it, and sighs happily.

"This one is mine," he says.

"How do you know?" Ide snaps.

"My name is on it, Ide-san. As Aizawa-san's -" he nods to Eriko - "was on the last one. God knew that she would hurry forward and take the first step." He caresses the scratches forming his name again. Eriko goes even paler.

"Well, brilliant," Ukita says. "Go in and get on with it. The rest of us will go get good seats."

Mikami is already reaching to open the door when Mogi's thoughts catch up with him and he says, "Wait. Shouldn't someone else go in as well?"

Everyone else stares at him as if he's mad, but eventually Ide says, muttering it, "I suppose it can help if you've got two people in a trap meant for one."

"Are you volunteering?" Ukita says. "He's on Jigsaw's _side, _he _likes _this kind of thing!"

"It would not be right," Mikami says, looking round at him - but he is hesitating. "God wants us to face our trials alone."

"Except for the part where he handcuffed me and Shuichi together?" Eriko says, spitting out the words at Mikami. "I'd have died in there if I'd been on my own. Do you want me to go back and do it again?"

"Mikami-san knows Jigsaw," Mogi says, making himself walk towards the door and trying not to think about what might be on the other side. "He might be able to give us useful information."

Raito Yagami nods. "That's right. We all want to know more about Jigsaw, Mikami-san," he says, and Mogi has to give the boy credit for being able to sound so calm suddenly, as if he and Mikami are students discussing their coursework. "If you get hurt or killed in there, we lose out on that knowledge."

"Do what you want," Ide says, the words catching, and then he turns and walks away, along the corridor running down the side of the trap.

"I guess it makes sense," Ukita says. "Hey, you do this one, I'll do the next one, how about that?"

Mikami swallows, straightens his glasses. "If - if you wish to learn more about God, then... but you may simply observe, you must not assist me in what I've got to do."

"Oh, don't worry, we won't," Eriko says, but quietly. Aizawa hears the remark, turns towards her a little, but she's not looking at him. Mogi remembers her screaming and he puts the image of her caught on the wire out of his mind. It won't be the same as that, at any rate.

It's funny, he thinks - all the survivors have been angry, except for Amane - Amane didn't seem angry at all -

Mikami is pulling the door open. Mogi follows, and just manages to step into the room before it slams shut behind them.

No wire, at least. A grimy grey room, smelling of mildew. There's the remains of a cupboard and sink against one wall, and the floor is bare, plastic. Perhaps a kitchen, once. The presence of something homely and familiar should feel reassuring, but it only makes Mogi start thinking of all the possible ways to hurt someone using household objects. He swallows. You must _not _panic. Or, if you do, you've got to let it carry you forward, push you into doing the unthinkable, and you can only do that if you know what it is.

At the back of the room, in the centre, there is a large box - no, a tank, one wall glass; pipes lead to it from the wall. Mikami is already heading towards it, but it certainly looks like not only the newest thing in the room but something that contains an unpleasant surprise. And as they get closer, Mogi spots the cassette player, duct-taped to the side next to a hatch. Mikami, of course, presses play immediately.

_"Hello, Teru. You know that you're here to atone, but I don't think you really know the extent of your sin. When you've spilt the blood of innocents, you have to bathe in it before you can be said to have repented. You can't get the satisfaction of saving a life without first accepting how close you came to taking one before. Can you identify your true nature and that of your victim's?"_

Mikami glances briefly across to where the others are waiting - this time, behind a row of thick, dirty glass windows. Mogi wonders how much they can hear. But Mikami is already kneeling down to look through the glass wall. At the back of the tank, something is suspended in the air - another key, glinting as it slowly turns. On the far wall, which is metal, there is writing, but the reflection in the glass stops Mogi from reading it.

"Wait," he says as Mikami moves round and slides up the hatch. "We don't know what will happen -"

"It's all right," says Mikami. "I am prepared for whatever I have to face. It will be better, Mogi-san. Once I have..." He takes a deep breath, and pushes the hatch up. "Aizawa-san is right to hate me. I failed in doing God's work. When his apprentices stumble, he has no qualms about asking them to face the same trials they've set for others."

"Do you know -"

But Mikami has already dropped to his knees and is crawling into the tank. Mogi hurries over and grabs the handle of the hatch, realising as he does how heavy it is. He doesn't relish the thought of crawling in if you're alone, with no one to stop you getting trapped. Although he's not sure he himself would actually fit through, which provides a convenient excuse. He looks over at the spectators - Aizawa, Eriko, Ide, Ukita, and Raito. They're all watching, but there's none of the concern that was present when Aizawa and Eriko were going through their trap. There's just... coldness. Waiting.

Mikami is crawling further into the tank; Mogi can feel him moving.

"What does the writing say?"

"Nothing significant. It's just many different characters - written all over the walls -" More movement - then the sound of the key jingling and Mikami making a small sound of triumph -

A clank. The hatch is wrenched out of Mogi's grip and it slams down. He grabs the handle, tries to drag it upwards, but it's not giving. Mikami's sealed inside.

From inside the tank there's another clank, and then the sound of groaning and gurgling from the pipes.

"Mikami!" he yells, and hurries round to the glass wall. Mikami is glancing frantically round, and they see it at the same time. At the end of the tank, a valve has slid open, and pouring from it is -

Mogi doesn't want to believe it's blood, but it certainly looks like it, and Mikami is scrabbling backwards away from it, his face twisted with disgust. Within seconds blood is covering the floor of the tank, soaking into Mikami's shoes and trousers. The contact with it seems to panic him, because he starts scrabbling at the hatch and then, as it doesn't move, crawling to the glass wall, pounding on it. Mogi can hear him screaming, but faintly, so the glass must be thick. Thick enough that just kicking or hitting at it won't do much. He dashes over to the cupboard and, with some difficulty, manages to wrench off its door. By the time he gets back to the tank, the blood is up to Mikami's thighs and Mogi thinks he can smell it. He bashes at the glass with the corner of the cupboard door, but barely makes a scratch, and the door is cheap plywood and splinters in his hands.

_There must - there's got to be some way out - _Jigsaw doesn't set up his traps to be smashed to bits with brute force, there's always some way to survive - he drops down to look through the glass wall again. It's already covered with bloodied handprints and Mikami scratches at it, sobbing, but Mogi can just make out those words on the walls -

"The characters!" he shouts, and points, trying frantically to remember what the tape said. Something about bathing in blood, well, of _course, _and - identifying your true nature - "Innocent? Or - or sinner? Something like that?" Mikami doesn't seem to hear him at first; he's trying to rub the blood off his hands and sleeves. Mogi pounds his fist on the glass. "_Mikami!_"

From somewhere, Mikami seems to hear him, to get the strength to turn and start studying the writing, splashing through the blood. Mogi presses his face to the glass to try and see. _Death, _he spots, and _shape_, and _law, _and, of course, _blood. _There are others he can't read. He tries not to think about what will happen if the words they want are already below the level of the blood. It's still rising, and Mikami's movements are slower, jerkier. If he faints -

He dives down, but he hasn't fainted, he's reaching for a character which has just sunk below the liquid. He seems to swipe at it, or press something, but nothing happens, and he begins to scrabble at it more desperately. Mogi wants to yell at him to do something but he has no idea what they _could _do. So many characters. _Child. Life. Bone. Failure. _Any of them could be the right one, hell, it isn't as if Jigsaw particularly _wants _any of them alive, and the blood has reached Mikami's chest -

A sudden movement. One arm flies up, and he claws at another character up at the top of the tank, half-hidden in shadow.

The hatch flies open with a crash and blood pours out of the tank and across the floor. It smells foul, has obviously been sitting rotting in a vat for some time. Pressing a hand to his nose and mouth, Mogi hurries round to the hatch, splashing through the puddles, warm wetness oozing into his shoes, and calls Mikami's name.

The glistening red figure crouches still in the middle of the now empty tank.

"Are you all right?" Mogi says, reaching out a hand to him.

"I can't," Mikami whispers at last. His voice is dry and he struggles for breath as he speaks. "I... I..."

"We need the key, Mikami-san. We need to save the girl. Remember?"

Mikami raises his head a little. His glasses are blotched with specks of blood; behind them, his eyes seem very wide, the pupils shrunk to pinpoints.

"It was _guilty_," he says. "I looked for _innocent, _after what you said. I thought I'd lost it... there was a button, but when I pressed it, nothing..." He shudders. "I had to find _guilty. _Her innocence and my guilt. I had to accept them both." His hair hangs in wet rat tails in front of his face. "I... _covered _in..."

Mogi goes over to look at the sink, but there's no water in it and when he gingerly tries the tap, nothing happens.

"It doesn't matter," Mikami says. "This is what he wanted. _Marked _for... I should have known. I was... Why should he be lenient with me? He knew I would suffer any amount of pain to... But not this... I must... I must... there must be another one. A better one... I will not fail that one..."

He shudders, suddenly, rubs his hands over his face and then roughly claws at his skin as if he's trying to scratch the blood off.

"The others," he says, "the others didn't fail -"

"What do you mean? Lots of people don't even survive -"

"The other apprentices," Mikami says, through his hands. "The girl sought to be accepted - her actions were foolish, of course, she should never have misrepresented God, but yet he did not hate her. I could see - he understood her devotion. He told me I couldn't see past her - couldn't see, she was loyal, she would have - he asked me if I had seen, known, but I had not -"

"There's a woman assisting Jigsaw?" Mogi fights to keep his voice low and calm, not to look at any of his colleagues. He's pretty sure they can't hear most of this. "Or there was?"

"He helped her." Mikami smiles, shakily. "He helped her as he helps all of us. A man had killed her family and escaped justice, and God punished him. I was not there, I did not know about that one, but I was joyful - not just the petty, the, the _rubbish, _but the true evildoers, murderers, devils, and I read about it and that was when I knew."

He shifts forward a little, eyes white against the blood on his face. "God laughed, when I told him. That it was that judgement which swayed me. It swayed her, too, and so she sought to attract God's attention."

"Amane? Misa Amane? She..." _She should never have misrepresented God... _

"Yes." Mikami stares down at the floor of the tank, at the pools of blood. He starts trembling again, and his voice jerks: "Yes - she - she lied and - God said he would - he -"

"Look at me," Mogi says, and he sees Amane smiling, saying, _it's a small world, after all! _"What did he say?"

Mikami looks over at him.

"He said he would test her," he says. "He said he would give her the chance she wanted."

"Because her first trap... she was never in a trap before, was she? The one she survived... she -" The words dry up in his mouth, and Mikami nods: "She did that herself."

Mogi sees her hands, black-gloved fingers twirling her hair, drumming against the tabletop, and - she'd cut off the fingers she no longer needed -

Mikami is hurrying forward, his breath shaky and whimpering as he splashes through the puddles, and Mogi moves aside to let him clamber out of the tank. No wonder Amane had seemed so confident - and the injury, they'd commented at the time how she'd been lucky, Jigsaw hadn't tried to disfigure her, a young pretty girl... Why hadn't they picked up on that? Ide's injuries from his trap had been similarly mild, easy to hide, and that was the main reason most people in the department were suspecting him... and Jigsaw had killed the man who'd killed Amane's parents...

Mikami gets to his feet, straightens up, and shudders as more blood drips off his clothes. Mogi glances back at the rest of the group, watching through the glass. Despite themselves, they look slightly sickened by what they're seeing - except for Aizawa, of course, and Raito, whose face has gone numb and blank. The typical young man, trying desperately to pretend he's on top of everything.

"But then - Jigsaw did test her?" he says. "Because of what she'd done?"

Mikami shrugs. "I assume that is what happened."

"You weren't involved?"

"No. I continued with God's work, I approached the people he told me to, and he told me that Amane would be tested as we would all be."

"Do you know what he meant?"

Mikami staggers towards the door on the opposite side of the room. He doesn't look back: "No. I do not question God." He reaches the door, fumbles with the bolts.

"You have been kind to me," he says, as Mogi catches up with him. "You were not angry, just now, when I... was fearful. I think you could be one of the good ones, if you want to be. I would be saddened to see you fail."

Mogi can't tell if it's a threat or not. He wonders if it's occurred to Mikami that if they do all survive this, he'll be arrested for the attack on Aizawa's family. And, now, for the confession of causing the deaths of at least some of the Jigsaw victims. He seems so intent on serving his god, but how long is that going to last? Until he becomes the onlooker, and one of them is entrapped?

Still, for now the door is open and they're both back with the rest of the group. They stand there and Mikami lets go of the door and it slowly swings shut again, with a dull creak. Everyone is staring at them. Well, they must be staring at Mikami, who is cutting a pretty horrific figure, but Mogi feels as if they're watching him too, as if they know he's got information he's not telling them. He finds himself turning away, trying the handle of the door they've just come through, just for something to do. It's locked from this side, it must be one of those which automatically does when it closes. Not that it matters. They don't want to go _backwards._

Why isn't he going to mention what he's learnt about Amane?

But he already knows the answer. Someone here is _not what they seem,_and there's still one apprentice unaccounted for. And the revelation about Amane spells out one thing clearly - not all those who support Jigsaw in his work are going to make it as obvious as Mikami does. So he says nothing, simply walks over to Chief Yagami.

"You're... you're all right?" the other man whispers. He looks skull-like, face the colour of flour.

"Yes, I'm fine."

"I shouldn't... I shouldn't have done it. Raito's here, he's my responsibility..."

"That's not true." Raito has dropped down next to his father, put a hand on his arm. "I can take care of myself. And what could you do, anyway? The way this is working out, it looks like we'll all have to - to face a test."

"No... no unnecessary risks, Raito," the Chief says. "Promise me. If I don't... listen to what the others have to say. You can trust them..."

Mogi doesn't say anything, but perhaps his face gave him away, because the Chief turns to look at him, struggles to shake his head.

"No," he says. "It's not... I don't believe the spy is any one of us. We have to... suspicion is... just as much of a danger..." His gaze moves over towards Ide, who's staring numbly at the ground, at the spots of blood Mikami left. Mogi can see his point. Ide panicked, assumed Matsuda was out to get him, and that's what got Matsuda killed. Jigsaw could well have made his comment about _not what they seem _solely to cause the same thing to happen again. There are only seven rooms, after all, maybe the intention is that they pick each other off, that the traps are only half of the story...

He nods, at any rate, and the Chief closes his eyes again, relief slipping across his face like faint sunlight.

And it isn't like they'll get anywhere now if anyone does raise the possibility of one of them being the spy. Ukita will go on the attack immediately, Aizawa and Ide will get defensive, and all the while they'll be losing time. Mogi doesn't know what to think about Ide, about what he did before. If he _is _the spy, then admitting he shot a colleague has hardly helped with his cover. And killing through sheer panic has always seemed convincing enough on its own. Even more so now, when Mogi can actually feel what it's like being shut up somewhere fighting for your life and terrified that something horrible is going to happen to you at any moment -

And yet, at the same time... trusting someone unconditionally is hard enough at the best of times, and this really isn't the best of times.

Better to do what he usually does. Stay quiet, stay watchful, and try and keep calm. That's going to be quite enough of a challenge.


	7. Dead is the New Alive

(A/N: this chapter's title is from a song by Emilie Autumn. It's also perhaps more directly gruesome than earlier ones, though YMMV, I guess.)

_Ide wants a nervous habit. Normally he rather despises people who constantly crack their knuckles or kick their feet against the chair leg_

_- __**like Matsuda**__, his memory helpfully reminds him -_

_but right now he wants to be like Ukita, chainsmoking and drumming his fingers on any available surface and barely bothering to pause for breath. It feels __**normal**__, and it'd make him feel normal. Like part of the group, someone with a known idiosyncracy. _

_But then, Mogi, next to Ukita, is still and watchful like he always is and only a slight movement in his throat every so often as he swallows gives it away that he's jumpy too. _

_And Ide is sitting at the other side of the table with his arms folded across his chest and his palms are sticky and grubby and the burnt one itches. Scratching at it wouldn't be a nervous habit. It would just remind everyone even more of why they're all here. _

_"Okay -" Ukita sits up a little, stubs his latest cigarette out, and reaches for a few papers lying next to him. "Aizawa passed on the statement he took. Mind if we go through it with you? So you said you and Matsuda woke up in some kind of meat locker?" He sounds scornful. Like, __**what do you think this is, a horror movie?**__ Ide finds himself thinking how he's never actually liked Ukita all that much. It's better than thinking about a lot of other things._

_"I don't know if that's what it was," he hears himself say, slowly, carefully, as if he doesn't want to get caught in a lie. "It was cold and the door seemed pretty much airtight and it... it looked like some kind of freezer. It was filthy, though. I doubt it was still in use." __**That's right. Talk about the location. Stick to inanimate objects.**_

_"Plus, there was the tank of acid," Ukita says, frowning at the papers. "Not a usual fixture for most food processing plants."_

_Ide finds himself wanting to lean over the desk and punch his colleague (__**former colleague,**__ his brain reminds him,__** there's no way you'll ever work again**__) in the face. His hands are already curling into fists, being raised, and he just manages to slam them down on the table instead, making the ashtray jump, and hears himself snarl, "I assume acid was what caused this. Perhaps you've got a different take on it?"_

_"Hey, I just want to establish how accurate your statement is," Ukita snaps back. "You were in a pretty bad state still when Aizawa spoke to you."_

_"Oh, you were there?" _

_"We've seen the doctor's report, actually."_

_"Then why are you asking __**me**__ about whether it was acid? I don't profess to be a burns expert!"_

_Ukita's already opening his mouth but then Mogi cuts in, "It's useful for us to hear you retell it. You know that."_

_"Exactly," Ukita says, scowling. He leans back in his chair and lights another cigarette._

_"All right, fine." __**Calm down, get a grip, are you **_**trying**_** to look guilty?**__ "We woke up in what looked like an industrial freezer, we spent a few minutes discussing where the hell we could be, I spotted the tape player, we realised we were in serious shit, we each fished a key out of a tank of acid, we walked down a corridor, found a corpse at the end, played the tape we found there, realised we were being slowly poisoned, and -"_

_He wants to keep on talking. He fully intended to keep on talking and sound confident and assured and like at least he wasn't lying to Aizawa, before, but suddenly there just aren't any words. He doesn't know why. __**I shot Matsuda, took the antidote and got the fuck out of there. **__Get it out in the open and move on. __**What the hell would you have done if you'd been there? I sincerely doubt you'd have let him kill you. **__He did it because - he - _

_They're both watching him and he realises suddenly how bad this must look, as though this is the part he isn't sure of, as though he told Aizawa a sanitised version and is now struggling to remember what that was. _

_"How did Matsuda react to that?" Mogi says. _

_"Huh. Badly."_

_He wants one of them to chip in, to ask another question, to call him a liar, something, but neither of them speak._

_"Denied it. Kept saying it couldn't be happening."_

_"And then?"_

_Ide swallows, hard, digs his nails into the scarred skin on his hand._

_"I thought he was going to go for the gun," he says. "So I dived for it as well."_

_"You thought Matsuda was gonna shoot you?" Ukita says, and perhaps he doesn't sound disbelieving at all but any response to that admission would probably contain some veiled accusation, some shock. _

_"Yeah. I did." Ide stares at them both. He's not going to glance away, he's not going to look guilty, and it occurs to him that it might just look like he doesn't give a damn but you know what, perhaps he doesn't. Perhaps he's just glad to be the one who survived._

_"And then what did you do?" Mogi asks._

_"Is it really a good idea for me to answer that?" He meant it to sound flippant, but it... just doesn't, and Ukita just says, "Perhaps it isn't, not for you," like he can't believe Ide's even trying to make a joke about it._

_"But seeing as you've already admitted twice that you killed him," he carries on, "I personally don't think it makes much difference either way."_

_"It was self-defence, all right? What was I supposed to do, just let him shoot me?"_

_"I've got the greatest difficulty in believing he would've shot you," Ukita says. "You never know, perhaps he thought you were going to go for the gun and wanted to get there first."_

_"And I was supposed to know that how exactly?"_

_"I don't know! Maybe you were just supposed to stop and think before proving the serial killer's point!"_

Ide nearly starts yelling properly but just in time self-control takes over and he hears himself sneer instead, "Great. I'll look forward to seeing what happens when Jigsaw threatens to set you on fire for smoking too many goddamn cigarettes."

_It's probably fortunate that Mogi cuts in with, "It isn't just about what investigating what you did, Ide."_

_"What?"_

_Mogi and Ukita glance at each other; Ukita nods, and Mogi continues, "We haven't found a body."_

_It wasn't what Ide expected to hear; it's as random and seemingly-illogical a statement as you'd get in a dream. Of course there'll be a body: Matsuda's blood-stained corpse with a bullet lodged somewhere in the chest is the entire __**point. **_

_"We worked out where you two were taken," Ukita says, lighting another cigarette. "That was difficult enough, ploughing through all the industrial estates in Tokyo. But we think we got it."_

_"How do you know?"_

_"Chemical traces. Blood splatters. And it's one that was sold on recently, was sitting empty between owners... which fits the pattern. Jigsaw's clearly someone who's got access to property, or contacts in the industry, or... just knows how to sneak in around the gaps without raising an alarm." __**Like a cop, like someone who knows how to hide their tracks, **__he doesn't say. "We're trying to chase down the paper trail, but... you don't need the details." _

_**Well, fuck you then.**__ "And Matsuda just... wasn't there?"_

_"No."_

_"He was covered in blood. If someone dragged him away there'd have been traces -"_

_"Yeah, thanks, we did check for that. Anyway, even if they did drag him away it doesn't help us if they tipped him into the trunk of a car and hit the highway."_

_"But why the hell would they want to? Jigsaw's always left the corpses before. He wants people to know who did it, what happened."_

_"Yeah," Ukita says. "Interesting, isn't it?"_

_"If you're suggesting __**I**__ drove off with the corpse -"_

_"Did you?"_

_"If I was going to go to the trouble of hiding the body, why would I bother to confess?"_

_"You really want me to spell out how it would help cover up any bits that don't match your story?" Ukita says, folding his arms and glowering across the table. "You really think we're so dumb that hadn't occurred to us?"_

_Ide swallows and stares down at his hands again. The air smells of smoke and it's not helping, it makes it thinner, makes it feel like it's hard to breathe. He's getting that a lot at the moment, feeling like he can't take in enough air. He's not sure if it's a side-effect of the nerve gas or budding neurosis. The point is, Ukita's right. Why the hell would the corpse have disappeared? It's a break in the pattern. Except that the pattern is different anyway this time. Two people in a trap and one kills the other, Jigsaw doesn't have to do a thing. Is he trying to throw suspicion on Ide? What would be the point? Actually he knows full well what would be the point. Waste police time on a dead end. Good idea, really._

_"It's not just... what about Toyama and Shirami? We got nothing from them because of the fire damage. Hell, Amane's body would've been burnt to a crisp if the building owner hadn't come back early. How do we know it's not... not..."_

_"Not what? What's special about those victims?" Ukita stubs out another cigarette. Ide stares at the glowing ash and wishes he could think straight, wishes he could spot something, some reason Jigsaw would want some of the bodies to be disfigured or hidden. There has to be a link. It can't just be that this is another step in making Ide look like the most likely suspect. Another trap, closing round him. God damn it, he has to __**think**__ - they all know by now that if you just scream __**this can't be happening**__ then you die -_

_"Or are you trying to tell me there are two killers?" Ukita says. "Because, funnily enough, that's what I was thinking too. I mean, we know it wasn't Jigsaw who killed Matsuda, right?"_

_"That's - that's not -"_

_They're both looking at him and his thoughts are yelling at him, __**say it, say it's not like that, don't just let them -**_

_"I've told you what happened to Matsuda," he manages to say. "That's all I did. The others were all Jigsaw - and why the hell do you think I'd do something like that anyway? When have I ever given the impression of being a crazed serial killer?"_

_"When does anyone make it obvious?" Ukita says. "If they did, it'd make our lives a lot easier. Still, maybe I'm exaggerating. Maybe you weren't involved in any of the deaths. Except for this one, of course - but maybe you've been passing on the odd bit of information? How the investigation's getting on? Whether we've made any breakthroughs? Whether Matsuda mentioned he was going to work late on a particular evening? That kind of thing?"_

_Ide shakes his head and __**don't be stupid**__, he wants to say, __**stop fooling around, you know me, you know I wouldn't do something like that -**__ Except then Ukita will say __**just like you wouldn't bump someone else off to save your own skin, right? **__and he'll say - he'll say -_

_"Did Matsuda work it out?" Mogi says, calmly, quietly, and that's much worse than Ukita's sarcasm, because Mogi never says stuff without thinking it through first._

_"It's not... it's not like that," he says, and his voice sounds dry as if the air really is too thin. "Not... I didn't... I didn't plan it. I swear to God, it was how I told Aizawa. I thought I was going to die, and..." _

_And all at once the guilt has whipped itself round and turned into anger instead. How dare they talk like he wanted all this to happen? Like he's pleased he nearly died and he's ruined his own life and taken someone else's? Do they really think if it were them they would've done any better? Well, maybe they do. Maybe they're pretty confident they wouldn't go to pieces at the crucial moment. And where the hell does he get off expecting sympathy, when their colleague died because of him?_

_"I don't know any more about who Jigsaw is than you do," he manages to say at last. Ukita snorts, and lights up another cigarette._

Maybe it's just because he knows how Jigsaw operates, but Ide can't shake the feeling everything's watching him. Or like there's constantly something in his peripheral vision that he's missing. Movement. A clue. That damn puppet, hanging there staring at them. A flicker in a reflection... something crawling out of the blood-covered tank...

This is stupid. It's more than stupid, it will get him killed. If you pay attention to everything, you miss what's important. He grits his teeth, walks on, moving quickly so the others don't catch him up right away. He is angry, he's so angry that he's shaking with it, and they'll notice no matter how hard he tries to keep control of himself. In fact that'll be worse, they'll see his pathetic attempts to try to stay calm. But for god's sake. You have razor wire and scalpels and acid and any number of inventive ways of ripping people apart, and then Mikami just gets a word puzzle and a slight risk of drowning? Sure, it was pretty disgusting - the smell coming off him is sticking in Ide's throat - but compared to gouging out your own eyes it's nothing, isn't it?

Maybe if whatever he has to face actually involves real suffering then that'll make the others stop looking at him like that -

What if_ - _what if they go through all the rooms and in the last one the prize - along with Aizawa's kid, of course - what if the prize is conclusive proof pinning Ide as the killer, or at least the spy in the police? What if - they all _want _it to be true, they want it to be a neat solution like that. Someone whose guilt they've more or less known about since Matsuda died. They can charge him and lock him up and feel like they've won at least one battle, reassure themselves Jigsaw can't get to them any more, and - he hasn't got alibis for at least half of the deaths, and they can say Matsuda guessed, worked something out -

_Did _Matsuda work something out?

No point in going over it all again. You'd think if he had he'd have said something, when they were in their trap at least if not before. You'd think...

(There hadn't been a funeral, of course, because of the missing corpse, but there had been a ceremony. Ide didn't attend it, and, on the morning of it, he decided to drink enough that he'd stop believing anything outside his apartment existed. He was passed out by the time Aizawa, still sighted then, came around to see if he was there. But later he was awake again, feeling like death and sure that Matsuda was in the room, trying to tell him something and he didn't listen, once again.)

The next door. There's a bare bulb hanging above it, sending a splatter of light onto the scratched wood. Scratches that make up a name. His name.

He's stumbled backwards and he's shaking, breath quick and fast and it's like the air is poisoned again because the more he breathes the harder it is -

"Huh. Guess he wanted to get his accomplice testing out of the way early."

Ukita - of course it is - has caught up. Ide wants to stay pissed off at him but that's all gone now. He knows if there was the slightest chance Ukita could change things so he didn't have to do this, he would be begging the guy.

"It's - it's Ide's name," Eriko is saying to Aizawa. The jacket bound round her arm is dripping blood, and Ide thinks of the red footprints she and Aizawa have left since they came out of their trap. His own feet are cold, he realises. He wishes that actually seemed like something significant.

"What are you waiting for?" Ukita says.

Ide doesn't know. Probably for this to all stop happening. He can feel the others watching, and he knows he has to walk forward, ease the door open, but he can't move, and the more he thinks about what he has to do the worse it gets. He - and he'll go in and screw it up somehow and - like with Matsuda, he just panicked, he just didn't think -

Ukita grabs him, wrenches him round, sends him stumbling back against the door, and then is right against him, snarling up at him: "I said, what the hell are you waiting for? You think if you hang on long enough someone else will volunteer, is that it? Someone else can get killed so you can live? Yeah?"

Mogi begins, "Ukita..." and Aizawa is already snapping, "Shut up -" but Ukita snaps round at them both, "You really don't think he deserves it? It was _Matsuda, _for god's sake, when the hell was _he_ going to backstab anyone? He was just scared like we're scared and then this bastard thought he'd take advantage of that, he didn't think it _mattered _if Matsuda made it out or not. Why the hell are you defending him? You really think he wouldn't have done the same to you?"

Neither Mogi nor Aizawa say anything. That's what leaves Ide feeling like this is a nightmare - the kind of bad dream where everyone you know tells you how much they hate you. Neither of them say anything, but Raito does. Clearing his throat, he says, quietly, "We need to stick together."

"I know that," Ukita says. "_He's _the one who's got issues in that department." He lets go of Ide, but gives him a filthy look as he does. And it's like Ide only works it out now - it's not that Ukita likes being a jerk, or just always says what he thinks. It's that he's genuinely furious, and always has been, about what Ide did, that he killed someone who he should have been helping. The realisation doesn't make anything better. Ide knows - he thinks he knows, anyway - that what he did was terrible. It's just that he _knows _and he doesn't need everyone telling him and whatever happened it was one stupid, stupid lapse of judgement, he's not guilty of anything else -

"Well?" Ukita is saying to him now. "Are you hoping if you wait long enough one of us will volunteer? That girl could freak out and get us all killed any moment, but I'm sure Aizawa will understand."

_You're doing it for Aizawa. You got him into this, so you can do what's needed to try and get him out. _The thoughts aren't thoughts, exactly, more like he's writing them down across his mind's eye. But they're enough like instructions that he can raise his hand, grip the door handle. _Now turn it and go in and - don't, don't start thinking __**what if**__ -_

"I'll go with you, Ide-san," Raito says.

They're all looking round at him. He and Mogi have been supporting the Chief, who looks like he's passed out. Probably for the best considering what Raito's just said.

"No," Aizawa says.

"It's only fair." Raito is pale in the dim light, but he walks towards the door perfectly steadily. "Mogi-san's just taken the risk. It's me or Ukita-san, isn't it? And..." He pauses, too polite to say _Ukita clearly hates Ide's guts, it probably wouldn't be a good idea. _"I'm one of the able-bodied people left. I can't be exempted just because of who my father is."

"Yes, you can." Aizawa sounds determined, but neither Ukita nor Mogi are saying anything. "He's suffered enough without seeing you get hurt as well."

"I know that." Raito swallows. "If he - if he dies - if - it'll be because of me. I can't - I can't just be someone that others have to look after, Aizawa-san. I have to do my part to ensure we survive."

Of course that shuts Aizawa up. Ide knows how much he's hated having to rely on Eriko for everything, and it must be killing him even more now that there's practically nothing he can do to help his daughter. Raito's reached the door now, is forcing a shaky smile. "I'm ready if you are."

Ide wants to yell _don't make me do this - _he's not sure who he'd be speaking to - but Raito's sacrifice has made it pretty clear he himself has got no options left. He nods, wrenches the door open, and they step through.

A room dimly lit by another bare bulb. Dark, and it smells of - petrol, burnt wood, smoke. And rot, blood - a slumped figure on the ground -

His stomach lurches but he's thinking, _this isn't a new trap - I remember this - it's already been sprung - _

He glances over to see if Ukita or Mogi have recognised it but where he'd expect windows or mesh, there's nothing. At first he thinks it's solid wall, but when he walks over to look - carefully, praying he won't feel a tripwire tighten against his leg - he sees that there are windows, but painted over with thick smears of black paint, dried rivulets of it like veins under his fingers.

"Can you hear me?" he says, but there's no reply, and he remembers that Mikami's screams, before, were only just audible, like noises from underwater. So. No witnesses to whatever happens.

He turns back to Raito, who's staring at the slumped figure. For a moment, there's a flicker of real unease on his face, but he pulls it back, turns to meet Ide's gaze, and says, "What... what do you think?"

"This is a crime scene," Ide says. "I mean - it's one of the other victims. I mean, not actually him, of course, but set up... the guy had been trapped in this room and there was a combination padlock on the door. He had to... we think there were numbers on the walls, and he had to read them by candlelight. And everything - he and everything else - had been soaked in petrol. This - it's been set up to look like that, the way the body's lying..."

"What had he done?" Raito asks. His voice, muffled, hums through his hands. Ide can't blame him. The smell's like choking on something.

"Burgled a house and killed the married couple living there. Well, that's what we suspected, but we couldn't make it stick. Jigsaw evidently felt he needed to take matters into his own hands. Anyway - there must be a tape, or - " He takes a shallow breath, trying not to taste the air, and walks over to the stand-in for Toyama. In the dim light he can't tell at first whether it's been burnt too. The skin is dark, but that could be rot, it -

No, it's not, it -

_Oh god, it can't be._

He doesn't want to go closer, but somehow his legs are still carrying him there, as if he's too scared even to turn and run.

It's the clothes that are the least unchanged. The scruffy blue suit, white shirt. Everything covered with blood by now, of course, blood set hard like tar. The face is sunken, eaten back, but you can still recognise it, once you know - the expression of shock it's wearing has slackened and the eyes, the eyes have pretty much gone, but most of the hair's still attached, and -

There was blood on his hands and Matsuda slumping against him like he was asleep and -

_not like this, didn't mean it like this, didn't want him to die I just wanted to get out I just wanted to live -_

"Here it is," Raito says.

A click.

_"Hello, Ide-san. It seems that you didn't take much from our last meeting. Since then you have withdrawn from your life even more, focusing only on revenge for what you think I have done rather than repentance for your own crimes -"_

"Turn it off," Ide hears himself say.

"We have to listen," Raito says softly.

"I can't. I can't do it. Not with -" He can't even say it, but Raito probably works it out.

"Let's finish listening," he says. "Then we'll know if something's going to kill us in the next few minutes. We don't have to do anything right away if that's not the case."

Ide isn't particularly soothed by that, but Raito is already starting the tape again.

_"- your own crimes. So, here is a chance to face up to all that you did. In this room are hidden a number of clues to point you to freedom, and to finding your friend's child. Sometimes the dead have knowledge you wish you'd had, or at least the stomach to do what's right. You might be closer to the real culprits than you think, so be careful. Put someone under enough pressure, and they could lash out at you instead." _

Raito breathes out, slowly, and then says, "Well, that confirms that there's another key somewhere." His voice is terse, although that might just be because of the smell, because he's trying not to breathe in too much. Ide tries to focus on him, on what he's said, on _doing the right thing _and _solving the puzzle _but he is, he is -

_He is sinking the needle into his arm and then everything goes quiet, calm, for a second, as if he has done all he needs to do, and in the silence he stumbles over to Matsuda, who's slumped on his side, and shakes him, lifts him up a bit, and says, "I -"_

_Blood is already soaking through the back of Matsuda's jacket and it seeps over Ide's knees and hands and down his wrists and into his shirt and the man's head lolls back and he still looks so shocked, you'd think he'd have realised by now -_

Raito is replaying the tape again. Ide hears him walk closer. They're both looking at the corpse and Raito says, softly, "I think..." and then, "I brought the saw from - from the first room in..." and then, at last, quietly, "It's Matsuda-san, isn't it?"

There's pity in his voice and Ide grits his teeth and focuses on the anger it brings up, better to be angry than anything else, and snaps, to prove he can, "Knowledge. And stomach. There's... there's a key inside -" His throat burns and he thinks for a moment he will actually be sick, but he forces it back down, tries not to think about the smell or what he's looking at.

"Yes," says Raito. "That's what I was thinking too." His voice is oddly calm. Perhaps he's in shock at the idea. Or perhaps it doesn't seem so bad to him because _he _had nothing to do with Matsuda's death.

"No one will blame you for this," Raito says, at last. "You're doing it to save lives. Matsuda-san is dead now."

_You __**idiot, **__you - _"And whose fault was that?" He's yelling it, and to his horror his voice shakes. "Your dad filled you in on the gory details, right? You know -" The words grind to a halt again. They'll think - they'll think -

"Yes," Raito says.

_They'll think I didn't give a damn - they'll think I just did it to save myself - _he can hear Ukita now, _anyone normal would be at least a bit creeped out by it, but not him, he just took the hacksaw and went to town -_

"Someone set you up," Raito says. "Do... do you know who that was?"

Ide's pathetically grateful to him for not talking about what's going to have to happen. "No," he says, and his voice does at least sound steadier now. "Wish I did. That'd take some of the pressure off, they'd know I just screwed up, I wasn't actually doing this on a regular basis."

"You don't have any idea?" Raito sounds slightly incredulous. Of course, he's the genius-level child prodigy, isn't he? He'd probably have made a list of most likely suspects and have set up a plan to trick the culprit into giving themselves up. He probably wouldn't have killed Matsuda in the first place, he'd have figured out how to save them both. He's certainly demonstrating the ability to stay calm under pressure at the moment. Ide bites his lip so he doesn't actually lose it and lash out at Raito. He's pissed everyone else off enough by now.

"No," he says. "No idea at all."

A pause, then: "Did Matsuda?" Raito says.

"What's that supposed to mean? Did he know it was me and so I killed him to keep him quiet?" Ide keeps his voice calm with an effort. Actually after the first few words he isn't calm at all. "No, actually, as far as I know that isn't what happened. And why the hell would I set myself up _again _if - if -"

"I didn't mean that," Raito says. "I... look, I'm sorry. I know this is difficult for you." Silence for a second, then: "Ide-san... do you think it could have been him who betrayed you?"

Ide stares at him, wondering if Raito's actually forgotten who they're talking about, or what happened. "What?" _I thought you were meant to be smart, _he just manages not to say. "What the hell's that supposed to mean?"

"I... I met him a few times," Raito says. "He visited our house. He seemed a... a nice guy. But easily swayed by other people's opinions. He'd agree with my father on anything, and... and he wanted people to be good. He wanted people to be nice to each other. Jigsaw's clearly got a persuasive edge to him - look at Mikami -"

"Mikami's insane," Ide says, but without any real irritation because...

Because actually...

No. What Raito's saying can't be true, it just - any minute now he'll see a reason why it makes no sense. It's like when you see a shadow out of the corner of your eye and think it's a person, the next second you realise you were panicking about nothing...

"I think Mikami's easily led," Raito says, evenly. "Matsuda was, too -" and god knows that's true, Matsuda worried about stuff, he wanted to be liked - "Jigsaw could easily have convinced him to pass on information, and then -"

"Then I kill him?"

"Perhaps. Or perhaps he kills you. People are thinking you're the traitor because you survived that trap with only slight injuries; they assume you set it up to make yourself look innocent. If Matsuda had been the survivor, then the bluff would have been supposed to work in his favour - that no one would voluntarily put themselves into a trap. Perhaps it would've worked even better for Matsuda. No one would think he was capable of premediated murder."

"He..." Ide wants to say _he can't be, _but all at once he's remembering Matsuda's odd remarks in the week leading up to his death. Trying to understand why Jigsaw's victims deserved it. Looking for ways it could be a moral act. And on the night it had happened, sitting at a desk reading reports of previous Jigsaw murders. Trying to decide whose side he was on? Trying to steel himself to get Ide killed?

And, _then_, as they reached the car park, trying to start a conversation - trying to delay them -

"I don't know," he says. "I don't know..." The walls and the stink of petrol are closing in on him. The idea that this _wasn't _his fault, that Matsuda deserved everything he got - mostly he doesn't want to believe it, he doesn't want to believe someone he knew and quite liked could have been so different to how he'd thought, could've been so _stupid - _

But if it's true, it makes him the innocent one -

"We don't have time for this," he says, trying to slam a door on the thoughts. "We don't have - we have to -"

They both look over at the corpse.

"All right," Raito says at last. He swallows, stares down at the hacksaw in his hands. "I suppose - the skull..."

Ide realises he can't stand there watching Chief Yagami's son chop up the corpse of a man who came to dinner at their house. Raito's only in this room because he was trying to be a good person. _This is my trap. _He thinks of Mikami: _you must not assist me in what I've got to do. _Oh god, he's buying into it, he's buying into Jigsaw's mindset despite himself.

But he can't let Raito go through this.

"No," he says. "Let me." And then he's taken the hacksaw from Raito's hand before he can think. Raito doesn't argue, but he walks over to the corpse and, taking it by the shoulders, eases it onto its back, keeping his head turned away from it. Ide can't blame him. It must've been kept on ice or something, but it still stinks. He wishes he had a drink. Although he's not sure being plastered would help much, but he can pretend.

"Okay," he says. "The skull."

"Knowledge resides in the brain." Raito sounds distant now, as if he's trying to think about something other than what he's saying. Ide wants to answer, but he's only talking now to put off doing it, so he takes a deep breath - through his mouth, to taste less of the air - and rests the hacksaw against the corpse's forehead. He makes himself refuse to think, and then he starts to saw. _Just meat, _he forces himself to think. _Just like chopping up tough meat. _All right, that might put him off eating meat for the rest of his life but vegetarianism is the least of his worries right now. The teeth of the saw catch a little, on things. _Just meat. _

"It's all right," says Raito, still distant, still quiet. "He got himself into this, after all." The smell is tangling in Ide's throat despite his efforts not to taste it. His right arm, the one gripping the saw, aches - the teeth are grinding against bone - but he tries to think about that and not about his other hand, the one that's actually touching the head to keep it still. Clamminess. Softness. _**Don't**__ think about it. _The Chief, earlier, crying out. _At least this isn't your own bones. Could be worse. Much worse. _And if Matsuda had... if it was him who...

A crunch. The smell's really bad now. But he's in, through the skull, and all he has to do is reach - god, he has to reach in and _touch - _

He slides the saw in through the gap he's made, twists it round. There's a creak and a snap and he's very glad that the light is so dim. Still, even in the shadow he can see that it - it looks even less like - who it was. Now the face is split open, like he's trying to cover up the evidence -

"He did this himself," Raito says again. "He was lying to everyone all along. If you hadn't killed him, he'd have killed you."

Maybe he says it more than once or maybe Ide's thoughts just latch onto the words and rattle them around in his head. Doesn't matter, they sink in either way. Matsuda was _lying. _All along, he was - he didn't think he was in any danger - he was laughing, must have been, at how scared everyone else was, at how Ide passed out when he stuck his hand in the acid, at Aizawa having to be led around everywhere like an invalid, just laughing, didn't care about anyone but himself -

He's talking out loud, muttering like he's drunk, but he's letting the words carry him forward, telling himself it's a victory being able to do _this, _sink your fingers into damp stickiness and - yes, he's really glad for the darkness now - lumps brush the tips of his fingers - metal, a key, that's what he's looking for - it backfired, that's the point, Matsuda thought he was being so clever but he screwed it up as usual, stupid, _stupid - _

Something cold and hard, and he claws at it, wrenches his hand back out - jagged edges of bone scratch his wrist. Uncurls his fingers. A key.

"Brilliant," Raito says, and smiles, a bright, shaky smile.

Ide nods and he badly wants to believe this is it, it's over, but catching on his thoughts is the memory of what else Jigsaw said: _the stomach to do what's right - _

"There's... there's more," he says, and chokes as he speaks. "There's... he said..."

Raito frowns.

"The stomach," Ide says, and he can feel himself smiling, god knows why, perhaps because if he doesn't he'll scream instead. "To do what's right. He said. We can't... if there's another clue, another..."

"Not necessarily," Raito says. "He might well just have wanted to make you search in more than one place. To - to challenge, I suppose. We don't have much time -"

"I'll be... I'll be quick. Keep talking, it... it helps."

He wrenches at the remains of the corpse's clothes. They're like parchment, stiff with blood.

"My father was saying if you don't know who's betrayed you, then you have to work entirely on your own," Raito says. "You can't trust anyone. I suppose that's why the others have been so harsh to you, but quite frankly I think it's appalling the way they automatically turned on you and didn't even consider him."

Darkness opening up around the saw, and he'd thought the smell couldn't get much worse but this is like being hit in the face.

"They didn't even want to consider that you weren't guilty, right? Even my father..."

"Your father..." At first Ide thinks opening his mouth was a mistake, that he is going to add insult to injury by throwing up over everything, but after a second he manages to get control of himself. He tries to focus on the words, the ones he's trying to say and the ones he hears. The words make sense, the conversation lets him kid himself it's all under control, it's solving a case. Only there isn't much he can add to what he was saying. Why the hell should Soichiro Yagami trust him, what reason is there? It isn't like Ide is anyone out of the ordinary. Not like Matsuda, who followed the Chief around like a puppy and Ide's always thought Raito's father was a little ridiculous to fall for something like that, Matsuda just wanted someone in power to like him. Matsuda wanted everyone to like him _but it wasn't like he ever made any effort to earn it -_

Hands, slickness and slipperiness round his fingers. _Just meat. Just mud. Doesn't matter who it was. _Enough time has passed it's just flesh, right? _This is why I did it. _He would never confess to anyone that the thought of ending up like this, rotten, _nothing, _scares the hell out of him, that sometimes the nightmare is that he didn't grab the gun in time and he's _about _to die, he's _about _to have to face the nothingness and all he can do is cling onto consciousness as hard as he can as if it will somehow save him -

"My father doesn't always... understand," Raito says. "He's a good man. We both know that. But sometimes he doesn't understand how difficult it is to make the right choices. He thinks everyone will be as uncompromising as him. I... I suppose we saw that earlier."

There should be a key. Or _something. _But there's nothing, just darkness and sliminess and now he's thinking, he's imagining how it would look to the others if they could see him scrabbling around in the guts of the person he killed - like he gets off on murder, like he chose this -

"But he still didn't give you the benefit of the doubt," Raito says. "None of them did. Why would they do that?"

"Matsuda... Matsuda's an idiot. Wouldn't have the brains to..." He loses track of the sentence. When he finds it again, he thinks he felt something against his fingers. Scrambling through the thickness, he carries on, "Matsuda acted like he liked everyone."

"And you don't?"

_There. _His hand closes round another small chunk of metal. "I... I got it." In the dim light, it sits in the middle of his blood-smeared palm. Raito frowns. "Two keys?"

"One to get us out, one to get to the next room? Try 'em both..." He scrambles to his feet, and his vision rocks, pools of more darkness opening up in front of his eyes. When it all settles down again, Raito is next to him, catching him by the arm. "Are you all right?"

"Fine. I'm..."

_Ide, wake up, _Matsuda had said, _please? _And it had been so cold -

He can feel the stickiness all over his hands and he's actually thinking now about what he's done and _no, no, _he can't do that, not right now. And it doesn't matter anyway - Matsuda lied and tricked him and - laughing, all that time -

The keys. He stumbles over to the door, which has no bolts on it but won't open anyway. Two keys. _For two locks._ He tries the second key, the _stomach _one. Nothing, it won't turn. The first -

It turns, but as it does there's a loud creak and a hanged figure falls down from the ceiling.

Ide hears himself curse and he's stumbled back against the door before he can think - Raito, next to him, has gone still, but after a few seconds, he steps towards the thing. As Ide looks at it he realises it's too small to be an adult - for one horrible moment he thinks of Aizawa's daughter, but then it swings round towards him and he sees it's not human. It's that puppet again, staring mockingly at them, its mouth fixed in a grin.

Raito stares at it, then laughs - a sharp, nervous sound. Ide squints at the puppet in the dim light and sees - sewn onto its black jacket in white is one character. _Guilty. _ His stomach lurches. Now he _really_ wishes he could get the blood off himself.

_Stop it. Focus. _The tape had said... _a number of clues. _The dead having _knowledge, _or _the stomach to do what's right. _That was the keys. A number of clues, some of which would help them get out and get to Yumi. The others...

_You might be closer to the real culprits than you think. _He takes a step forward, towards the puppet. _Face up to all that you did. _Face your guilt. Or what, face the guilty party? Well... Matsuda clearly hadn't been all that he seemed, and the tape had said one of them wasn't. Just like Jigsaw to be talking about a corpse. _Face up to all that you did. _Close to, he can see the ridges and whorls of wood under the thick coating of white paint on the puppet's face. _Knowledge you wish you'd had. _The puppet swings a little, the mouth falling open. _Be careful. _

Matsuda diving for the gun. _They could lash out at you instead. Closer than you think. _Matsuda had got scared? Thought Ide knew something? There's something scrawled inside the puppet's mouth, a curved shape. He leans forward, squinting -

The recorded laugh tears through the silence and he's jumped back, heart pounding and furious with himself that he's this nervy. The laugh repeats itself and under it he hears, suddenly, a _tick, tick, tick - _

_Be careful - you might be closer than you think -_

"Get out," he calls over his shoulder, but he sees Raito is already wrenching the door open - and then -

The puppet's face shatters like a burst light bulb, and he's running, and the air is full of sharp specks and then something ripping across the side of his face and he's crying out but he's outside, stumbling across the corridor, and Raito is there, looking back at him, eyes wide.

"Are you all right?" he says. "If - if that had gone off a second earlier -"

Everyone is staring at him. The cut on his face burns and he feels it widen as he opens his mouth to say something (_I'm okay, _perhaps) and there are other, smaller needles of pain around it. He rubs his hand over them like brushing them off will work, and feels specks of shrapnel like grains of sand under his fingers.

"Is my father..." Raito has stumbled forward to where Chief Yagami is slumped against the wall, still unconscious. "Dad, can you hear me?"

"I think he's going into shock," Mogi says quietly. He crouches down next to the Chief, studying the wound to his foot. The makeshift bandage - someone's jacket - is sodden with blood.

"Here -" Raito starts pulling off the sweater he's wearing. "It's not going to do much, but the bleeding's getting worse, isn't it -"

"Look, we'll go on," Ukita says. "Mogi, Raito-kun, you stay with the Chief and catch us up." He glances at Ide, at Mikami, but doesn't actually say out loud _you two might as well wait, I don't want you near me. _

"What happened?" Eriko says, abruptly, staring at Ide too, and he realises how much blood he's covered in. He and Mikami make a nice pair now. _That _was probably intentional, too.

"Doesn't... doesn't matter. We're okay. It was a... there were two keys, and..."

_In this room are hidden a number of clues..._

"It was about Matsuda," he says. "The bastard was... reminding me of that, is all. I've got both keys, I reckon the second one will... you'll need it to move on. It's done now. Ukita's right - let's get moving."

He can feel Raito still watching him.


	8. Fire Fly

(A/N: The title of this chapter may seem generic, but is taken from the name of a song by I-Exist. It's a cool song, check it out! ^^)

_Aizawa has got through the day on no sleep before, but he's pretty sure it's never been this difficult. He feels like he's been hollowed out. Certainly he doesn't have any intelligent thoughts left. He's not sure he's got __**any **__thoughts left._

_He sits and stares at the papers in front of him - phone records, lists and lists of them - and he's supposed to be checking them but his mind keeps drifting back to the house phone ringing, his feet cold as he clambered out to answer it, Eriko whispering to him __**what's happened?**__ The recorded voice asking him to accept a reverse-charge call from - and then Ide saying his name, sounding dazed, drugged, or as if he'd been awake for days -_

_**What the hell's going on? **__he'd snapped, like Ide's ever been the type to prank call you at two a.m._

_Silence at first, just the sound of breathing and cold air, and then Ide, voice shaking: "__It was Jigsaw."_

_Aizawa hadn't realised quite how much this case was getting to him until Ide said that and nausea hit the back of his throat. Another sick game, another tortured corpse, and for Ide to sound so bad it must be something even worse than what they'd already seen -_

_"We had to... me and Matsuda. He's dead. I mean... Matsuda's dead. I killed him, he's dead, he..." And then he started __**laughing.**__ Aizawa was dearly wishing by now that it was a prank, or that at least Ide was so het up he was making things sound worse than they were. _

_He snapped out the vital questions: __**Where are you? Are you hurt? Is Matsuda with you? Are you sure he's dead? **__and Ide answered, the laughter still trembling behind his words (or perhaps it wasn't laughter). _

_"Give me the number of the call box," Aizawa said at last, wanting to say __**get a grip, tell me what really happened, tell me you're making a big deal out of nothing.**__ "I'm going to phone you back on my mobile. We'll pinpoint your location and send an ambulance. Okay?"_

_Ide started laughing again and then he said, __**I told you. He's dead. An ambulance isn't going to help.**_

_Aizawa pretty much snarled __**for you, you idiot**__, and then he's ashamed to admit, even in his head, that he wished he could just hang up and let someone else deal with it. But he didn't, of course, he called Ide back and got dressed and stumbled out into the cold and he feels like he's been stumbling ever since. _

_At the front of the room, Chief Yagami clears his throat, and Aizawa makes himself look up. No point in staring at the desk as if he's got something to feel guilty about. _

_The Chief doesn't say much, of course. But at least he doesn't pile on the cliches either. He just goes in with __**It seems that Jigsaw has moved to directly targeting members of the police force. **_

_Already Aizawa can feel the reactions around him, but the Chief carries on, __**Last night there was another incident. It concerned Ide and Matsuda. **__And now, of course, everyone is looking at the two empty desks, and Aizawa has no __**reason **__to feel like he's been punched, he knows what the news is, but he feels sick and furious all over again as the Chief says, __**Ide is currently in hospital receiving medical attention for the injuries he sustained. Matsuda is dead.**_

_After that announcement, of course, everyone else looks as empty as Aizawa feels. That's the only bright side in what has to be one of the worst working days in his life so far. It's not much of one, really. _

_The Chief explains that Aizawa was first on the scene and will be taking a statement from Ide as soon as the latter is sufficiently recovered enough to provide one. Yeah, __**that'll **__be fun. He urges caution and vigilance. He says some other stuff too, but Aizawa can't make himself focus on it. When he manages to tune back in, they're back to the general briefing. Ukita's just standing up. He starts to speak, clearly trying not to look at the empty desks as he does: "Yeah - a friend of Amane's called in. Another model, they did a shoot together. She said Amane had gone out to meet a boyfriend the night she died."_

_"You're kidding," someone else says. "Why didn't she tell us earlier?"_

_"Worried it'd make Amane look bad, I guess," Ukita says. "Her manager had been giving her a hard time about her image or something. But she implied to this girl pretty strongly that she was going on a date. If she'd just never shown up, you'd think the guy would've come forward... so it seems pretty likely that the guy she was meeting was Jigsaw."_

_A pause. _

_"Or... someone connected to him," he says, and glances at the desks again, at Aizawa._

_After that, Aizawa's expecting a confrontation, so he's not terribly surprised when Ukita steps in front of him as he's making his way back from the coffee machine and says, "Okay, so what actually happened?"_

_Aizawa wants to tell him to piss off, that he hasn't got the energy for this now, but he's still trying to make a pretence he's got a grip on the day. _

_"What the Chief said," he replies, trying to keep his voice calm. "Jigsaw stuck them in a trap. He was filling the damn building with nerve gas, they were both being slowly poisoned. And then..."_

_He thinks of Ide when they found him, slumped in the phone booth, wide-eyed and picking at the dried blood on his hands and shirt. It had been daylight by then, and the few people about had been looking warily over, or hurrying past on the other side of the road. Ide hadn't seemed to notice._

_Aizawa wrenched open the door of the booth, called his name and Ide turned to look at him._

_**Did you tell them? **__he said. _

_**Who? Come out of there, you look like hell -**_

_**The Chief and the others. **__Ide stumbled forward. He was shivering, and moving slowly like he was walking through water. __**No, I mean, I know you have to, but they - I didn't want to do it, I need to - god, the Chief's going to kill me - **__He swallowed. __**He thought Matsuda had potential... **_

_He was covered in blood. Aizawa tried not to stare at it. __**Don't worry about that now, **__he said. __**You can explain later. **_

_"And then?" Ukita is saying._

_"There was an antidote. Just one dose. They both... I think they both panicked. Ide thought Matsuda was..."_

_Ukita stares at him. "So it's true, then?"_

_"What?" Aizawa says, as if he doesn't know full well what Ukita's talking about._

_"They're saying that it wasn't... they're saying Matsuda would've survived if Ide hadn't screwed up." Ukita actually looks half-apologetic under the belligerence. Aizawa doesn't particularly like either reaction. Does Ukita really feel sorry for him? Thinks he's so emotional he can't accept the facts? And besides, it's not - well, yes, it __**is **__like that, but -_

_"Why don't you tell them that Jigsaw heavily implied only one of them was going to make it out and people don't always make the best calls under those circumstances?" he snaps._

_Ukita blinks. __**"Calls**__? Okay, I'm all for cutting people slack, but Matsuda's __**dead **__because of what Ide did -"_

_"Matsuda's dead because of Jigsaw. Let's keep in mind who the actual perpetrator is, all right?" He doesn't want to be doing this, defending Ide because Ide can't do it himself. He doesn't want to be talking about it at all; it isn't like that will improve the situation in any way. He makes to walk on, but Ukita moves to stand in front of him again and says, "Okay, yeah, let's talk about why Jigsaw's suddenly moved to targeting __**us**__ instead of his usual lowlifes, did Ide have any thoughts on that?"_

_"What? It isn't like he saw it coming."_

_"No, and I bet Matsuda didn't either!"_

_The corridor's not quite empty; a few people glance over. Aizawa makes himself lower his voice - with an effort - as he says, "Have you got anything practical to say, or are you just going to yell at me because you're mad Jigsaw got to us?"_

_"Okay, sure, I'll be practical." Ukita's lowered his voice too, and he glances round quickly before he speaks. "If it happened the other way round, if Matsuda killed Ide - and I __**know**__ you think Matsuda's not the sharpest tool in the box, whereas you and Ide go way back - if he were the survivor, would you still be so keen to shove all the blame onto Jigsaw?"_

_Like Aizawa's the type to get emotional at the first sign of trouble. Or worse, like he's the type to constantly give perks of the job to his friends. For god's sake, what the hell's got into Ukita?_

_"Yes," he says, and perhaps some of the anger does come through because Ukita looks away, bites his lip. "Yes, I would __**blame Jigsaw**__ because he's the one who damn well did this. You should've seen Ide, he's torn up about it. He knows there's going to be questions -"_

_"Yeah, I'd say so."_

_"What the hell do you want me to say?" Aizawa can feel he's this close to losing it completely, all the usual tolerance for other people scraped away by being awake for so long. "Ide screwed up, I'll admit that! But enough people are going to be calling him on it without me stepping in!"_

_"Look, I just want you to... watch your back," Ukita says, lowering his voice a bit. "Think about it, okay? Jigsaw's been keeping a step ahead of us for weeks. Now he manages to kidnap two of us with no hassle, no one saw anything. Doesn't it occur to you someone could have been passing information to him? Or - god, I don't know, that he actually __**is **__a cop?"_

_Aizawa's not sure whether it hadn't occurred to him before now or whether he just hadn't wanted to think about it. _

_"And why would one of us do that?" he says at last. He sounds sarcastic, like he's humouring Ukita, but he can hear an edge of nerves in his voice._

_Ukita shrugs._

_"It'd mean someone's a complete lunatic underneath," Aizawa carries on. "People don't just wake up and decide forcing someone to saw off their own leg is a rational idea."_

_"No," Ukita says. "But people can get a bit sick of dealing with bastards who treat others like shit and don't give a damn. Most of us, we'll have a drink and try and forget about it, but maybe __**someone **__decided they couldn't do that any more."_

_"Well, Ide's not shown any signs of that, all right?" _

_It sounds far too much like denial - like he actually __**has **__seen some signs and chosen to ignore them. But he's almost sure he hasn't. He __**knows **__Ide. They've been in agreement from the start that no matter how unappealing some of Jigsaw's victims are, what he's done is monstrous. If Ide had been having second thoughts, he'd have said something. Wouldn't he? _

_And for god's sake, Ide isn't __**like**__ that. If anything, he's the opposite: concerned with convention, disliking standing out, much preferring to follow the expected path rather than take risks and end up looking stupid. If the job was getting to him enough that he'd consider taking the law into his own hands, he'd have brooded on it, resenting that for him, there __**wasn't **__an option to change things because that wasn't what __**people like him **__did. That's the worst of it now. The trap was set up to exploit the fact he's not comfortable thinking outside the box. Make him feel like he was in another system with only one way out._

_Which suggests that whoever set it up __**did **__know very much who they were dealing with._

_"I'm not saying it means there isn't an - an information leak somewhere," he says. "But Ide's not it."_

_"It doesn't have to be someone who's nuts," Ukita carries on like he didn't even hear the last comment. "It could be Jigsaw got some dirt on them, blackmailed them into it. Or hell, maybe up til now they didn't know what they were doing, they didn't know quite how much information he'd got out of them. I'm not saying they've been locking people in warehouses themselves. Just that -"_

_"Ide managed not to die, therefore he must have been guilty somehow?" Aizawa snarls. "For god's sake, the last thing any of us need is paranoia!" __**That's what got Matsuda killed**__, he nearly says, but holds the sentence back. "Got anything else you want to say, or are you going to let me get back to my desk?"_

_Ukita glances away like he's making the decision to let stuff go this time. _

_"Just... be careful, okay?" he says._

_He steps back, lets Aizawa walk past him. It's obvious what he really means, but Aizawa decides to ignore it. _

He can feel Eriko yanking him forward as they walk. She's twitchy, her blood-stained hand sticky in his.

"We're wasting time," he hears her gasp, "we don't have _time -_"

And he wants to shout at her that he _knows, _he's not happy about this either, he wants to get his daughter _out of here - _

He needs to remember who the real villain is, he needs to stay angry at Jigsaw, for god's sake, but -

(And that's what he's been _trying _to do, all this time, he's been trying to hunt down a sick bastard who needs to be stopped, and she thought he was just doing it for his own amusement, like some sort of particularly gritty mid-life crisis - and how dare she, how _dare _she think so little of him, how dare she think he left her in danger because he didn't care?)

"We're on it -" From his voice, Ukita's further down the corridor. (Or whatever. Of course what makes this situation even worse is that it's in a place he's never seen. At least when he's at home, or in Ide's apartment, he can map memory onto it, but with unfamiliar places it sets his teeth on edge that there's so much he's missing, so much he won't understand that everyone else _can._ When the place you're in is filled with death traps, that only makes it even more frustrating.)

Ide, behind them, is silent. Aizawa wants to ask him what happened in the last room, but he knows it'll only trigger another argument, somehow. While they were waiting, Ukita said, _Look, even if he's not connected to Jigsaw and he's not lying to our faces, he still cracked under the pressure last time. And you can't see him now, he looks like he's about to go axe crazy any second._ Eriko had been silent, but the sort of silence that suggested she agreed. She probably blames Ide for everything as well, thinks he's encouraging Aizawa to be an idiot, and there's no way a conversation about that won't end in another fight.

Not least because Ukita probably does have a point. Ide's been on edge and pissed off for weeks - which isn't surprising, but still, in this, when getting blinded by rage will get you killed...

(And it's not like Aizawa's not pissed off as well. Ide at least didn't come out of his trap left blind and dependent for the rest of his life.)

He makes himself stop thinking about it all. Focus on what he can feel: his grimy, blood-stained feet, criss-crossed with cuts; his dry mouth; other little nicks from the wire, on his arms and down his side. Eriko stops. They're closer to Ukita now - Aizawa hears him gulp.

"Well," Eriko says at last, "I suppose it makes sense." And then, awkward - they both hate this constant spelling-out, this treating him like a stupid child - "It's Ukita-san's name on the door."

"I'm going in," Ukita says, after a moment. "I just... fucking hell..."

Aizawa wants to say something that would help, but he's pretty sure there isn't anything. Whatever's beyond that door is going to be horrific and someone is going to have to face it. In the end he begins, "I'll..." and he doesn't even know whether he _is _going to say _I'll go with you, _but both Ukita and Eriko start in on him: Ukita snaps, "I'll be fine -" and Eriko is saying, "Don't be stupid, no one expects you to do anything -" and Aizawa knows that's true and it makes him sick, he's sitting back and doing nothing while other people go through hell to save _his _family -

"Come on," Ide says, loudly - he's moving forward, past Aizawa. "You're so keen to get this over with, so let's go, right?"

"What - why the hell should I want _you _in there with me?" Ukita says.

"Everyone else is with the Chief," Ide says, "and I'm not letting these two go in there." And then, "Look, the trap will be for one person. One goes in, one will come out. I can give you an advantage. Spare pair of hands."

Ukita is breathing quickly and for a moment there's just silence until Eriko says, sounding angry herself, like she's been goaded into it, "I could -"

Aizawa's heart lurches but Ukita's already saying, "_No,_" and so Ide carries on, "Yeah, so it's me or face it on your own. And that isn't any better."

Ukita doesn't argue. Aizawa had half-expected him to, the guy is being so damn obstinate about everything, but the next moment there's just the sound of the door opening again, and footsteps, and then Eriko pulling at his hand: "There's bars, here, we can see - I mean..." Aizawa would wrench his hand free from hers purely out of spite if it wouldn't leave him lost. Instead, he follows her, and when they stop she lifts his hand in hers, places it against cold metal bars. She's whispering, "I can't see much - there's more stuff in front of us, pipes or something. Um... a box or something, like... like a coffin..." She stops as her voice shakes, then takes a deep breath, and, says, fiercely: "I think - yes, there's a cassette player taped to the box thing, they're just -"

It's how she's trying so hard to keep it together, to tell him the important bits. He wants to stay angry with her, suddenly, because it's a hell of a lot better than listening to her be hurting and terrified that they're all going to die. He squeezes her hand instead. He doesn't know what to say, but already there's the hiss of a recorded cassette playing.

_"Hello, Ukita-san. You've been burning with the fire of your convictions recently, haven't you? You're very keen to believe the worst of everyone. Why haven't given your colleagues the evidence and let them make up their own minds? There's something about the Toyama case you're keeping to yourself so that others can stay in their own personal hells. Now it's time to taste your own medicine. Don't procrastinate this time - you'll find out how hard it is to bear the suspicion of others soon enough. One minute is all you'll need to find the key, but every second is an age when you've been left out in the cold."_

It's hard to hear clearly, but not that hard. Aizawa feels like he's been shoved off a cliff or something, the breath sticking in his throat. It's like - maybe he's hallucinating, or dreaming or something, his mind making stuff up to compensate for the lack of visual surroundings. _Ukita _would never - if anything he was _too _honest, letting you _know _if he didn't trust someone - he couldn't -

He feels like he can hear the stunned silence of everyone else all around him until Ide swallows and says, "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"He's a fucking lunatic -" Ukita begins, but he sounds nervous, wary, very much _not _someone taken by surprise with a completely unexpected accusation, and Ide is already cutting across him: "He sounds like a lunatic who knows what he's talking about!"

"There's a hell of a lot of stuff I know that I'm not going to tell _you,_" Ukita snaps back. "Can we focus on the death trap for a moment and not you being a goddamn hypocrite? He said there's a key -"

There's a thud and scrabbling footsteps and Ukita yelps and then Ide's shouting, "Oh, no, you're not just going to walk away from this -"

"Stop it -" Eriko screams, her nails digging into Aizawa's hand, "You don't have time, _look, _that clock's already counting down -"

Aizawa wants to punch both of his colleagues, neither of whom seem like they've got a grip on the situation. Trying to sound like he's got it together, like he's not as scared as everyone else, he calls, "Can you see a key? Any of you?"

"It said one minute -" Ukita's voice is moving, he must be hurrying round the room. "That timer's already counted down two - so what's it -"

"Nothing in this thing, either," Ide says. A heavy clang - that must be the lid of the coffin-like box. All at once Aizawa is remembering the feel of being shut in the dark, your head and shoulders pressed against flat metal that won't move, yelling for help, _damp sticky key falling into his palm along with drips of blood - _

He feels for a second like he is going to black out and he _knows _it's not going to happen to him again, at least not right now, he knows it but he can't believe it and he knows he's not the one trapped there but it's so dark -

"It..." Even speaking is an effort. "It must be... someone has to... to go in there... get in before... before the time runs out..."

The movement on the other side of the bars stops.

"And, what, stay in there for a minute..." Ide says. "Stay in there and then we get the key... and probably we have to do it to get out of the room as well, that door's not just bolted..."

"There's not room for both of us," Ukita says, at last, unsteadily. "If it was just me, it'd be... I'd have to go in there and face it, right? But there's two, so... you'll just what, stand and watch while I get impaled or whatever?"

Ide begins, "We could -" and Ukita carries on, "No, _you _could, you've - you've got a lot to make up for, after all -"

"Says the guy who's been holding out on information - and why is that, again? Because it would make me look slightly less bad?"

"Don't flatter yourself," Ukita snaps. "I was keeping my mouth shut because I didn't want to end up like Matsuda, okay?"

Ide laughs - that same horrible sound as when he was talking on the phone, the night Matsuda died: "Oh, you don't need to worry about _that, _Matsuda knew what he was doing, I just, I just want to know whether you did too -"

"Stop messing around," Aizawa snaps, not sure which of them he's directing it at now. "You need to figure out how to get the key, and Ukita, if you've _got _any information then tell us now, you don't know what - what..."

He hears Ukita gulp and then his voice is closer suddenly: "Look, it's not how it sounds, it - Toyama got a letter, okay? The person who killed him wrote to him. Said they knew he'd killed the Amanes, the alibi was false, had proof he'd got the gun from the Tanaka guy, a bunch of stuff... Toyama's girlfriend said it was a blackmail threat, asking for money. Toyama was going to go and meet the guy and deal with it, she said... only of course he got jumped and put in the trap instead."

"Yeah, so?" Ide calls, voice still shaky.

"So _Matsuda _found out about the letter," Ukita carries on. "I was thinking about Toyama and Shirami and Amane, so I went back to talk to Toyama's girl and she told me about how this young police officer had come round, how he was cute and kind of an idiot and tripped over his own feet. She wasn't very nice to him 'cause she thought the letter had been written by a cop on the make. Toyama told her it was saying stuff only the police would know."

_A cop on the make. The spy. _"Where's the letter now?" Aizawa says, trying not to think about how if Ukita had only _said _something then maybe they could've traced Jigsaw, maybe they wouldn't be here now -

"Matsuda took it," Ukita says. "Then he died. I've been through his files. It's not there. I think he trusted the wrong person. Told someone what he'd found and that someone realised they didn't have much time - if the letter was investigated it could be traced back - so they had to do something, they worked with Jigsaw to set up a trap -" His voice is moving away, back towards the centre of the room. "Figured if they looked like another victim, no one would be suspicious - sound familiar?"

"That's bullshit," Ide's yelling, "it was nothing like that - Matsuda _knew, _he - he thought _I _knew something - that's why he hung around -" There's desperation in his voice and Aizawa feels sick, what the hell's he talking about, does he even know what he's saying? _Matsuda knew - _

"Figured it out, did he?" Ukita snaps back. "Realised you weren't all you seemed? Maybe you were right, maybe he _was _going for the gun, knew it was the only way he'd get out alive!"

"I didn't _know_!" Ide is gasping for breath, and Aizawa is about to yell at him to calm down but Ukita's already carried on, "Like hell you didn't! He came to you and you killed him and now you're hoping the same'll happen here, right? Bump us all off and pretend you got lucky? Like hell. I'm not getting into that thing - you can damn well see what it's like when you're on the receiving end for once -"

"For god's sake -" Aizawa yells into the darkness, "stop it, both of you, you don't have time to argue -" But he could be shouting at nothing, he has no way to tell if they're even listening - he can hear Eriko crying, and he reaches for her, feels her clutch at him - "Stop it," she echoes, "you've only got a few seconds, please, _please -_"

"Coward," he hears Ide say, and then there's a creak and clanking and Eriko's fingers dig into Aizawa's arm as she says, "Ide's getting inside. I can't see if there's anything in there." She's trembling. "The clock's about to run down -"

For a moment everything's silent except for their breathing.

Then there's another clank, and then, all at once, a tearing _whoosh _sound and Aizawa is all at once thinking of high school, because - yeah, chemistry class, Bunsen burners -

He feels heat brush his fingers and he lets go of the bars, feels warmth swelling beyond them, and Eriko gasps, "No..."

And then Ukita is screaming, _"No -_" as well and then there are frantic footsteps, and the sound of someone wrenching at a locked door. Eriko breaks free from Aizawa's arms and he can feel her yanking at the bars, hear them rattling, and then she cries, "I'm going to try the exit -" and she's gone. Aizawa stands still and - the bars are really hot now. He tugs at them anyway, but they're not giving. Ukita is still screaming, but the sound is further away, and muffled, as if he's curled up, put his head in his arms. And under that, the breathy sound of burning gas, and a faint crackle and pop of bonfires - Aizawa can feel sweat on his face, he can almost see the glow of flame -

And then suddenly the hissing stops. Eriko is crying still, but suddenly there's a click and the creak of hinges, and Aizawa hears her running into the room. "Ukita-san! Ukita-san - oh, god -"

More clanks and then she's calling Ide's name. Aizawa hears him curse, and then, "Quick, let's get him out of here -" Their voices move back to the door. Aizawa grits his teeth, hating that he can't do anything, can't help, has to stand around being even more of a burden when someone else is seriously hurt. A hand on his arm, and not Eriko but Ide saying to him, "This way -" Aizawa realises he can smell blood.

"Are you okay?" he says.

"Yeah. It dropped into the floor. Hot, and I think the air would've - but it was..." Another laugh, wrenched out of him. "It was only sixty seconds..."

"And Ukita?"

"He's passed out," Ide says. "Probably a good thing." Then silence, as if he's waiting for Aizawa to comment on what Ukita said.

_Matsuda knew..._

Aizawa shrugs, nods. It isn't that he _doesn't _trust Ide. It's just that...

_He still cracked under the pressure last time._

It's just that before, it was him and Ide, both outcasts through no fault of their own, with no options left but to solve the case, and now...

Now the most important thing is to protect Eriko, and rescue Yumi. And Ide may have proved himself a reliable colleague when you're assessing evidence and following leads, but he's proved himself extremely _unreliable _when it comes to a life-or-death situation like this. And not the person you want to confide in while you're trying to line up the facts in your head... trying to see what shape they make and what the truth really is...

No. Better to put things together alone.


	9. More Than a Sin

(A/N: Nearly at the finale! Chapter title taken from a song by the James Brothers.)

_Mogi has spent the afternoon squinting at CCTV footage, and now the real world looks just as grainy and washed out, everything moving slightly more slowly than it should. He rubs his eyes, slides the last tape out of the department VCR, and pulls his notes towards him, reviews them once more. There isn't anything in them that seems like it will be of use, but he checks he's documented all the visitors to the One Forth bar anyway. You make sure your records are as thorough as possible, and hope that it will help. He hopes __**something**__ will help, anyway._

_The door rattles open, and he looks round to see Matsuda standing in the doorway, looking like he's not sure whether he's got the right room. He grins nervously: "Hey, Mogi-san, I came - I mean - the Chief sent me to see if you needed any help. With the tapes, I mean."_

_Mogi shakes his head, but adds, "Thank you."_

_"Yeah, I figured." Matsuda laughs. "You're super-efficient at that kind of stuff. Hey, did you spot anything? Think we've got a breakthrough?"_

_Mogi shakes his head again, but Matsuda comes into the room anyway - the door swings shut, blocking out what little light from the corridor there is - and picks up the notes. Mogi wonders what he's looking for - hoping to spot the vital clue, maybe? Well, they'd all like that. Matsuda certainly takes longer to read the notes than he needs to. Maybe he's just putting off going back to his desk, although - Mogi glances at the dark sky, then at his watch - they'll both be leaving soon._

_"I hate feeling like we're getting nowhere," Matsuda says at last, handing the notes back._

_Mogi agrees, but he says, "We may know more than we think." He's trying to convince himself as much as Matsuda, but the other man nods firmly: "Yeah, he's - he's probably right under our noses, we've just got to..." _

_He trails off. Mogi picks up the box of tapes and is heading to the door when from behind him, Matsuda says, "Mogi-san..."_

_He looks round. In the dim light, Matsuda looks uncharacteristically serious. But after a moment's silence he shakes his head: "Never mind, I forgot what I was going to say."_

_Typical Matsuda. He sticks close by as Mogi goes to lock the tapes up again, and they end up walking out into the foyer together as well. Not that Mogi minds Matsuda's company, but he feels like he's being expected to say something, and he doesn't know what. _

_But Raito Yagami is standing by the reception desk, and Matsuda's focus switches to him: "Hey, Raito-kun, are you waiting for your dad? I think he said he was going to leave soon, but you know - well, yeah, you definitely know what he's like."_

_"Thanks, Matsuda-san." Raito smiles, but he looks tired, as if he's not got the strength for small talk._

_"Do you want me to let him know you're here?" Matsuda says._

_"No, I called him. It's okay, it's nice to wait in the warm. How are you, Matsuda-san, Mogi-san?" _

_"We're okay," Matsuda says. "This case is really tough, though. Your dad probably told you? It's just...not good."_

_Raito nods. "He's told me who you're after, at any rate. It sounds pretty horrific... at least, the way the newspapers are describing it."_

_"Oh, I suppose it's no worse than any murder case," Matsuda says, pulling on an expression of hastily-assumed bravado. "I mean, we see a lot of bad stuff anyway, right, Mogi-san? But the Jigsaw Killer is pretty twisted. Okay, I guess a lot of his victims deserved it -"_

_Mogi gives him a look - even if it is their boss's son, he probably shouldn't be __**that**__ frank - and Matsuda looks guilty: "Sorry! I didn't mean... I mean, obviously no one deserves some of that stuff. I just meant, you know, a lot of them are kind of lowlifes. But not all of them. I mean, Amane-san... a young girl like that, that's just horrible. She was probably about the same age as you, Raito-kun. I just wish we could get a lead, is all. It feels like we're going nowhere, right now." He pauses, like he's going to say something else, but then just sighs and stares down at his feet instead._

_"Well, let me know if there's anything I can do to help," Raito says. "Dad's told me not to get involved, but if I __**can **__assist you I'd really like to. You're right, Matsuda-san... no one deserves to die like that."_

_"You should totally help!" Matsuda says, face lighting up. "You're so smart, we'd probably solve it in a day."_

_Raito laughs, modestly, but the tiredness remains. He's shadowy-eyed, and thinner than Mogi remembers him. But still alert, still with all the drive and determination burning in him that you'd expect from the Chief's son. Mogi says, "Raito-kun's probably got a lot of other things to think about now. University must be keeping you busy?"_

_Raito nods: "But it's nothing I can't handle." He smiles at Matsuda. "So just ask if I can be of any help. Sometimes I feel pretty useless compared to all of you, especially when something like this is happening."_

_Mogi wants to say that he doesn't feel particularly useful himself, not at the moment, but of course that's not something he can admit to Raito. He lets Matsuda answer instead._

Even just binding another article of clothing round the Chief's wound leaves Mogi's hands sticky with blood. Mikami, watching, shudders a little; Raito's face is painfully blank. Ukita or Ide would probably have called Mikami out for hypocrisy, but Mogi's not about to add to the stress they're all under.

"That might help," he says. "But it - it's still bleeding. Quite heavily. Perhaps we should wait a moment? If we apply pressure, that might help slow the blood loss down."

Raito nods. "Catch up with the others in a little while?"

"Yes."

Raito sighs, and gets to his feet again as if he can't stay still. There's no blood on him, Mogi notices, not like there was on Ide.

"What was the trap?" he says.

Raito smiles, thinly. "Matsuda-san's corpse. It had keys inside it. Ide... Ide had to get them out."

It says something about Jigsaw's methods that Mogi's first thought is _it could have been worse. _And at least they now know where the corpse vanished to. Although... did that mean Jigsaw always intended Ide to face another trap? He must have known Ide wouldn't just give up, not once establishing Jigsaw's identity would potentially prove his own innocence. Which in turn suggests a nastily specific prediction of all their behaviour. Jigsaw must have an intended outcome for all of this, and Mogi's not got a lot of faith that it's for them all to survive.

Of course... that's assuming Ide _wasn't _spying for Jigsaw.

Mogi lets himself consider the possibility again, now that he knows what Amane did. All right, if she had set up a trap for herself and Ide had done the same thing... well, why? Amane had what, wanted to attract Jigsaw's attention? Pay homage to him? Force him to make contact with her? Ide wouldn't have had any of those motives. Was it to destabilise the investigation? Or to get rid of Matsuda in a way that wouldn't paint him as the sole guilty party? But surely if _that _were the motivation, he wouldn't have confessed to the murder... he would have claimed a trap that Matsuda hadn't been able to avoid, and then, yes, had the body hidden...

But he's never pretended it wasn't him who killed Matsuda... he's never even tried to paint it as an accident...

Unless the important thing was to get rid of Matsuda? Tipping the rest of them off to his involvement, the possibility of a spy, didn't matter, because Matsuda knew too much?

And if Ide had set up his own trap, had it been with Jigsaw's knowledge? His assistance? Had the two always planned to hide the corpse? Or had Jigsaw been playing his apprentices as much as he has everyone else?

Too much conjecture. Mogi can dream up as many scenarios as he likes but he has no idea how to match them up with reality, especially not right now. And does it even matter? If the spy is here, he'll want to survive as much as the rest of them do. No one knows anything. No one's a risk. Right?

Under his hands, the clothing-bandages are unpleasantly slippery.

"I will look to see if anything around us can help," Mikami says suddenly. "It may be that God will provide, now or in the future. There are empty rooms around us."

"Good idea," Raito says. "I'll come too - I can't just -" He stops, as if angry with himself for betraying weakness, and follows Mikami down the corridor.

Mogi doesn't think there'll be much to find - the fact that Jigsaw's not sealed the rooms off suggests he won't have left anything in them that can affect the outcome of the game - but perhaps neither of the other two can bear any more to watch the Chief slowly bleeding to death - _No. No, only if we take too long about this. There's still a chance - if we get out, get to a hospital..._

He shifts his grip a little. The Chief groans, blinks.

"Raito..." he whispers.

"It's all right," Mogi says. "He's not far away."

The Chief nods, looks blearily round. "The... the others?"

"They went on. We'll catch them up soon."

"Work... work together... Ide was... he got scared... we have to..."

"I know," Mogi says, and swallows, the information from Mikami itching in his throat. The fact that he's kept it to himself makes him feel as if he's just humouring the Chief now - telling a dying man (no, _not _dying, not if they hurry) that everything will be all right. The Chief is better than that.

Not to mention Mikami's not here. Mogi can't help feeling that if the man saw his information being reported to everyone else in the group and realised how many police officers now know about it, he might panic. He might remember what he can be accused of, feel cornered.

No. Mogi will tell the Chief. He can trust him. Later, he'll try and pass the information onto Aizawa and Ukita, at least.

"Mikami told me," he says, keeping his voice low, "that Amane-san faked her first trap. To attract Jigsaw's attention, he said."

Chief Yagami's eyes widen, and Mogi carries on, "Then Jigsaw tested her again - and that's what killed her -" He stops as he sees Mikami and Raito walking back round the corner. The Chief nods, gasps, "Tell... tell..."

"Don't try to talk," Raito says, hurrying over. "Mogi-san, we didn't find anything. We should probably keep moving, right?"

Mogi nods. He starts to help the Chief up, but as he does, the man's eyes roll back, and he falls back into unconsciousness again. They haul him up and start walking, but his skin's clammy, his heart racing. Mogi tries not to think about it. There's absolutely nothing they can do but keep moving.

Along the corridor. Another door, this one with Ukita's name scratched into it, but Mogi can hear voices in the distance. The passageway leads to the side, past a row of bars, and then just beyond it, there are the others. Aizawa standing rigid, staring at nothing; Ide, leaning against the wall, the blood on his hands and clothes darkening as it dries; Eriko kneeling on the floor next to Ukita -

He's passed out. His clothes are charred and blackened - Mogi can smell burnt cloth, and burnt skin. Sickness crawls at the back of his throat. Ukita's skin is mottled with patches of red and white. Eriko gets to her feet, hand to her mouth.

"I think they're mainly first- and second-degree," she says. "Not... not that I know much. But there are some bad ones on his back."

"Not much we can do," Ide says, flatly. "I doubt he'll have left us a source of running water or a first aid kit." He glances round at Mogi. "Good, you're here. Let's keep going." He grabs one of Ukita's arms, hauls it round his shoulders - Raito hurries to help.

"If everyone has... has a trap," Eriko says, as she starts to lead Aizawa down the corridor, "then that means there's, what, four left? Yagami-san... Raito-kun... Mogi-san... and you, Shuichi." Her voice shakes a bit. "But he said seven rooms..."

"Unless the first room counted as a trap," Aizawa says. "Or maybe the last two rooms will have two traps in them. Or two people will need to handle them. I don't know."

Mogi feels the weary silence rise up around them. Everyone's probably thinking the same thing - that two of them are seriously injured, one of them is blind, and everyone is tired and scared and starting to get desperate. Even if they all survive the rest of the traps, will they make it in time? Yumi Aizawa must be out of her mind with terror. He breathes out, slowly, and tries not to think about it. Usually, he's quite good at not getting stressed; he can focus on what needs doing and just follow that, ignoring the difficulties around him. But now he can't stop thinking about all the things which could go wrong. All the ways they could die here.

Ahead of them the corridor ends in a narrow staircase, another lightbulb hanging at the top of it. Dark lines of shadow fall from each step and from the thick, sagging cobwebs hanging from the walls and the banister. Ide's already hurrying up the steps, along the landing at the top. There's another door about halfway along. Ide stops at it, glances, and then, leaning over the railings, calls down, "Mogi, it's your name this time."

Mogi tries to keep his face blank and calm but it feels like someone's kicked him in the stomach. He nods, and tries to pretend he's focused on getting Chief Yagami up the stairs. But he doesn't think he's fooling anyone. _You can't afford to panic, _he reminds himself, but it really is just words now.

He stands in front of the door and he doesn't want to take a deep breath because he thinks that will only emphasise how scared he is. But just as he's about to turn the handle, Mikami says, "I will accompany you."

Mogi turns to stare at him. He wasn't expecting that. Mikami stares back, trembling slightly, still pale and queasy-looking under the blood, but he says, "You helped me earlier. I owe you a debt."

The others are clearly thinking that it might not actually be an advantage to have Mikami at your side in a death trap, but no one says anything until Raito clears his throat and says, "I'll come too. We need to try and keep ourselves as uninjured as possible."

"That won't happen if this trap's like the last one," Aizawa says. "If Ukita had been on his own -"

"He still might not have done what he was meant to," says Ide. "We could've worked something out if he hadn't been so stubborn." Mogi can't tell if he's triumphant or angry about it.

"And Ide-san and I didn't sustain any injuries from his trap," Raito says. "It's as much a gamble as anything, and I can't stand here and do nothing."

"Fine," Aizawa says. "But for god's sake be careful, all of you. I doubt we'll be able to get Ukita and the Chief out of here without you."

Raito nods. Mogi grips the handle - his palms are damp, he notices - and wrenches the door open.

Beyond it, grimy strip lighting spills a harsh yellow glow - the kind Mogi associates with factories and school sports halls - over a drop almost right in front of them. Jagged floorboards, the edges of rafters and ceiling tiles, and then -

A pile of broken glass.

It's so mundane, glittering shards like a smashed bottle in the gutter, that for a moment Mogi thinks, _well, that's not so bad. _Then his brain catches up with reality and he realises that actually, it _is_ bad. Treading barefoot on just one piece of glass is no small thing. Going into a pit of it... God, he actually can't imagine it. He can't get scared because he's never had to deal with that much risk of injury.

On the other side of the drop, there's another TV screen, fixed to the wall. As Mogi sees it, it flickers into life. The puppet looks, if anything, even more pleased with itself.

_Hello, Mogi-san. You have a lot of strength and a lot of integrity, but you never give any of it up. Instead you hide behind silence and observation, working alone, while others make the mistakes. Let's see how much your strength will serve you when you have to let it go, drop by drop, in order to move forward. Take the risk. Find the key. Make your choice."_

Mogi had been wondering what the criticism would be, preparing to deny it, to resent being brought here through no fault of his own. But actually, _silence and observation _sounds quite fair. As does _working alone, _particularly now. At least he did tell the Chief about Amane.

Although, why should he care? Why is he buying into the idea that Jigsaw has any right to judge any of them? They've all said, all along, that _no one deserves this. _He thinks again of Amane: _the man who killed my parents did. _Did she think she deserved what happened to her, in the end? Or was her final thought fury that she'd ever believed her murderer had any real idea about justice?

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter who deserves what because right now, what he's got to do is find a tiny key in a pit filled with broken glass.

He looks round at the other two. Raito's eyes are narrowed, but he looks determined now, as if actually seeing what they're facing has made him resolve not to lose to it. And Mikami too looks less broken - he's taking a shaky step forward, his eyes wide behind his glasses and damp hair.

"Well... it's lucky that there are three of us," Raito says, at last. "It'll save time." He smiles, half-heartedly. Mogi wants to tell him that he doesn't need to keep trying to be brave, that they're all terrified, but perhaps Raito _does _need to try, perhaps if he didn't he would crumble completely.

"If we sit on the edge, we can climb in from a lower point," Raito continues. "We really don't want to land from more height than we can help."

The floor is dusty and Mogi can feel little specks of glass under his bare feet. He tries not to think about it. At least this won't be fatal. God, they could be lucky, they might not even be too badly hurt. _Yes, let's keep hoping for that._

Mikami goes first, a black-and-red figure suddenly dropping into the glass. It clinks and clatters as he lands, and if he's hurt he doesn't let it show, immediately scrambling up and starting to scrabble through the glass. More chimes. Mogi remembers what he said, about owing, and the video talking about _working alone, _and pushes himself off the edge. For a moment he hangs there, and then his fingers slide free and he's falling. It's not a long drop, but immediately hot, sharp pain darts up his feet. He tries really hard not to think about it. Raito is already following, a hiss of pain among the jingle of glass as he lands. Mogi starts scooping through the shards, studying them closely - it would be horribly easy to miss the key even if you did come across it. Jagged edges catch on his hands, drawing specks of blood.

Mikami is whispering - Mogi can't make out the words over the cling of glass on glass but the murmurs go on and on and he thinks it sounds like a prayer.

"God will provide, Mogi-san," the man says as he realises he's being listened to.

Mogi would point out that Mikami's God is the one who got them into this situation in the first place, but he doesn't think there's much point. He can feel the edges of glass catching on his clothes. His hands are blotched with red; he leaves fingerprints on each new piece he touches.

"You do not believe. I understand." Mikami smiles, tiredly. "But God wants us to succeed. He _wants _us to defeat the traps he's laid. I'll prove I'm worthy, aiding you, sacrificing blood." His hands are already more cut than Mogi's - he's clutching at each handful of glass as if he doesn't want it to get away, and lines of blood are oozing down his fingers and wrists. "Amane-san sacrificed only what she was willing to lose. He knew that. I'll give away everything -"

There's a crash as Raito drops the glass he's holding.

"Amane-san?" he says, sharply. "The - the girl who died?"

Mogi nods. "Mikami-san told me she... wanted to meet Jigsaw." He stops, wondering if he should be telling Raito all the details - but then, isn't the whole point to trust others, to disseminate information as widely as possible? "She faked a trap in order to try and get his attention -"

"And then he wished to test her again," Mikami says, striding through the glass like someone walking through water. "It was a test for her and for his other apprentice - not myself, but my counterpart. It was a test for both of them and both of them failed. That's what God said."

Mogi turns to look at him, trying to think through the slipperiness and pain in his hands. That the other apprentice - the spy - is involved isn't surprising - Jigsaw must welcome someone else helping him even with just the logistics of setting up traps - but it was a test for them as well? So... had they been there? Trapped but managed to escape and left Amane to die? Or...

"There are... so there's another accomplice?" Raito says, eyes widening. "The spy in the police, it must be..."

"I don't know. I've never met him." Mikami turns back to the glass. "I serve my God as I must. Others do as they wish."

Mogi expects Raito to comment on that - highlight the gap between Mikami's piety and the horrible truth of what's actually being carried out by his god - but Raito is silent, staring at Mikami for a moment before turning back to the glass.

After a few more minutes - it's getting harder to keep a grip on the pieces of glass, and Mogi can feel his shirt sleeves becoming heavy with blood - Raito gasps, and dives forward, snatching at something in the heap.

"Is it -" Mogi hardly dares hope, but Raito turns towards him, holds out his bloodstained palm to show the key lying in it.

"God provides!" Mikami cries out, smiling shakily.

"That's right." Raito smiles back. "Come and look - I think it's the same as the others -"

Mikami trudges through the glass towards him, studies the key. Raito lets him look for a second before shoving it into his pocket. Absently, he picks up another piece of glass - a long, triangular piece - as if he's intrigued by the shape. Mogi is about to say, _let's get out of here, hurry, _but then Raito is suddenly gripping the glass tightly and then he has jammed it up into Mikami's throat in one quick, fierce movement.

Mikami tenses, his hands twitching, and then, as blood starts to pour from around the glass, down Raito's hand and arm, he groans, makes a choking sound, and then, after a little longer, he buckles at the knees and collapses onto the glass. The clink and shatter wakes Mogi up, clues him in that this actually just happened, that Raito just - that the _Chief's son _just -

He stares from Mikami - who's already gone dead white, is already not looking at anything - to Raito, pale too, but wide-eyed, watchful. He's trying to think, trying to work out what the hell's going on, and he doesn't think he's coming up with any answers but there's one thing he's noticing. Raito should be horrified. If Raito thought Mikami was dangerous, or about to turn on them, if he'd acted in self-defence, then he should have been appalled, still, by what he had to do -

And he's not. He's bright-eyed and shaking slightly and _satisfied._

They stare at each other and Mogi sees Raito work out that _he's _worked it out (worked _something _out, at any rate) and then is diving for the edge of the pit. Mogi stumbles after him, but there's more glass tearing at his feet - each step hurts - and then a sharp point sinks deep into the underside of his left foot, just under the arch, and the world greys out for a second at the pain -

Raito is at the edge, hauling himself up - Mogi throws himself forward, through the dizziness, grabs at the ledge. Up and onto the floor, onto his _feet_, oh, god - _stop him, stop him getting to the others - _his stride's longer than Raito's, he can do this, close the distance -

He grabs at Raito's arm and Raito swings out wildly with the glass. Mogi finds himself noting, at the back of his mind, that he clearly still hadn't quite taken it in, that he'd never normally let himself get so close to someone armed with a blade. That he still obviously can't believe _the Chief's son _would actually do this. He's grabbing for Raito's other wrist but his hands hurt and they're slick with blood and -

Suddenly Raito is very close to him and he can't see the glass any more but there's - it's like tightness in his throat, and he can feel hot wetness oozing down onto his shirt collar.

Raito is pulling himself free, stepping backwards, looking down at him. He looks calm now, calm and cold. Looking down because Mogi is half-lying on the ground now, he doesn't remember falling but he must have, somewhere along the line... It is very hard to breathe. He wants to panic, he wants to force himself to take another breath, but he suspects it wouldn't actually help, and it would hurt. The lights are still on, but something's growing darker. Raito is still watching, but as Mogi feels his chest constrict, blood in his mouth, choking, Raito starts to walk away, and Mogi hears the door slam shut behind him.


	10. The Last Goodbye

(A/N: chapter title taken from a song by Lacuna Coil, and the choice Aizawa faces is directly inspired by one in the Saw video games.)

Ide can feel the world slipping. Not as bad as it did after Matsuda died, when it really did feel like everything had torn itself to pieces and no one else had noticed. But... it's like a prelude to that. Cracks all over the surface. He can taste dust and blood and he feels like the air's too thin, though god knows whether that's nerve gas or the memory of being shut in that box or just psychosomatic.

At any rate, the others don't look any better. Ukita is still passed out, Chief Yagami's barely conscious and it seems like every breath he draws is an effort, and Aizawa and Eriko, in each other's arms, are both staring numbly at the door that must be the exit to Mogi's trap, looking as if they expect the worst any second. Aizawa would never normally let you see he was this stressed. Or if he was giving himself away, it'd be through shouting and slamming the table. Ide wants to say to him _you okay? _but that's a stupid question and besides, what would he do if Aizawa said _no_? Tell him things could be worse?

His thoughts swing back to what Ukita told them. The letter. Matsuda. It clinches it, really. Jigsaw had had someone in the police helping him all along, or at the very least since Toyama's death. Ide can _see _it, Matsuda slowly being convinced that he needed to do something - that just being a police officer wasn't enough, that _these people deserve to be punished. _He would have heard what Toyama had said when being questioned - he knew, like they all did, that the guy was guilty as sin - and Matsuda had always seemed to struggle with the idea that the world wasn't fair -

_So stupid -_

But there's no point in feeling _sad _about it, for god's sake. In fact, it's good if that is what happened, right? _Makes __**you**__ the innocent victim - makes you a survivor - _if the truth comes out then it'll all stop, he'll get his life back, no longer feel like everyone's talking about him just out of earshot -

_Yeah, let's see if I survive __**this**__ first. _The Chief's leg wound has left a wide trail of blood all along the landing; the burns visible on Ukita's back and arms are fierce red edged with a horrible dead white; Eriko's injured arm is hanging limp at her side and her face and legs are striped with more cuts.

Just as he wonders what's happening in the other room, he hears the door rattle. Then it swings open, and Raito, covered in blood, stumbles out into the corridor.

He stares at them, eyes wide, trembling, and he swallows and starts to say, "Mikami..." and then, "Oh, god, I'm sorry..."

Ide waits but there's no other movement, no one else walks through the doorway, and Raito swallows again, says, "I tried..."

"Where's Mogi?" Ide hears himself say, angry like any of this is Raito's fault. He's not angry. He's - it can't be, it -

"Mikami..." Raito takes a deep breath, visibly getting a grip, and - so clearly trying to be the mature, responsible detective-to-be making a report - says, "Mikami killed him. There was a pit full of... of broken glass..." He holds out his hands, which are striped with cuts. "We were talking about Jigsaw. I think Mikami told Mogi some things earlier, in the other trap... I think he realised he shouldn't have given a police officer that much information. He kept saying God would punish him and then..." Shuddering, he rubs a hand over his mouth. "Then he picked up a piece of glass and..."

"You're sure?" Aizawa says. "You're sure Mogi's dead?"

"Yes. There was..." Raito swallows. "There was blood everywhere, Aizawa-san..."

"What happened to Mikami?" Eriko says.

"I... I panicked," Raito says. "I was... I was holding... there was glass everywhere and I... he was coming after me and I just... I didn't _mean _to, but he was crazy and I just... I didn't want to die..."

Ide can't tell if he's horrified or if he's not actually feeling anything. The world's definitely splintering now. And at the back of his mind a small voice is going _they'll pin this on you, you know that - first Ukita, now Mogi - they go into a trap with you and only you make it out - that's what Jigsaw wants -_

Which is a horrifically selfish reaction but the fact is, it's _true -_

"Did you get the key?" Eriko says, abruptly.

Raito nods, holds it out. It's speckled with bloody fingerprints, but Eriko grabs it anyway.

"If Shuichi and I carry Ukita-san," she says, "the two of you can bring Yagami-san?"

"We should..." Aizawa's voice is hoarse. "We should go and... Mogi might still..."

"I don't... I don't think there's time," Raito says, numbly. "If he wasn't dead when I... when I left then... It was right across the jugular. It... all that blood..."

Ide expects Aizawa to argue, but although his friend starts to say something, it trails off, and his shoulders slump. Eriko puts a hand on his arm.

"Come on," she says. "We have to go."

Raito takes a deep breath and walks over to his father. Ide goes to help him. Chief Yagami's breathing is slow, shallow, and he stares blankly at them both like he doesn't know them. As they haul him up, each resting one of his arms across their shoulders, Ide finds himself waiting for the next breath, terrified it won't come (and then Raito will lose it, and then they'll all lose it, and then, and then...) They don't have far to go to the next door - it's only at the end of the landing - but every step feels like an effort, not least because Ide wants to _get out, _he wants to flee, not stumble along weighed down by a dying man...

The Chief tries to say something. Even that makes him tremble with effort, and Ide snaps, "Don't try and talk." Anger again. As if they're all equally to blame for all of this.

Eriko, staggering under Ukita's weight, is pulling the door open, and then she and Aizawa are already stumbling through it. As Ide and Raito catch them up, Ide hears her crying "Oh, thank god..." and then, softly, "Yumi, sweetheart? Just stay still, we're going to get you out of that thing..."

Ide feels a stab of relief run through him. If they've found the kid, then that means this must be over, right? He tries to ignore the thought that two of them - three, if you count the Chief - haven't had to face a trap. Still, maybe Jigsaw thought Raito was too good to deserve it. Maybe he thought Aizawa had suffered enough. You can't start complaining because you haven't seen _enough _death traps. The point is that they're at the end, they'll make it out -

The room is dark - the only source of lights are another bare bulb in the corner and a TV screen, hanging on the wall opposite Yumi but showing nothing but static. Yumi herself stands in the middle of the room, still, the lower half of her face encased in rusty metal and wires like a giant, horrific set of false teeth. Eriko rushes over to her, but slows down as she gets there, swallows.

"There must be a key," Raito says. "Don't touch it, Aizawa-san - we don't want to trigger anything -"

In one hand, Yumi is holding a torch; in the other, a knife. Eriko grabs them from her, stares desperately at them, but then Yumi tugs at her mother's sleeve and then, shakily, points. Below the TV, on the ground, is a covered tank, about a foot high. Through a narrow slit in the cover, Ide can just see the glint of light on water.

_Take a proper look. I bet you it's not anything as harmless as water._

"In there?" Eriko says.

Ide moves over to the tank. Even as his eyes adjust to the dark he can hardly see anything. But he knows. Things coming full circle. A trap, Matsuda showing up again, and now this -

"Did he - were you given a message?" he says to Yumi, trying to keep his voice calm, looking her in what he can see of her face. Her eyes, wide and pale, stare back at him from above the metal of the bear trap. She nods, points to the TV.

"Did it say there's something in here?"

She nods again, puts a hand to the trap, then points. Eriko's telling Aizawa what they can see, but Ide isn't hearing it any more. He kneels down on the chilly floor, rolls up his blood-encrusted sleeve.

_Don't drop it once you've got hold of it. And don't let the stuff splash up into your face._

God, he'd been giving advice to Matsuda like the bastard had actually needed it.

The sudden stab of anger makes him able to shove his hand down into the darkness of the tank before he can think about it. And yes - cool liquid, again, that starts to sting and then to burn as his skin wakes up to what's happening - but it's not as bad this time, it's _not, _the scar tissue must - everything deadened, nerves buried - his mind is screaming at him to get his hand out of there but he curls his other one into a fist, digs his nails into his palm and feels around, through the pain, against the smooth floor of the tank -

_Ready?_

_No._

Eriko is saying something but he can't hear what it is. Just him and the liquid and - _hurts - _and Matsuda saying _Ide, wake up - please? _No, that had been later - _it hurts - _a hand clutching his wrist - he clenches his fist - _it _- his breath is sticking in his throat and he can't, he can't, he -

Against his fingers, something small and hard, and he almost loses his grip on it because he's so shocked to find what he's looking for. Scrabbles after it - ripples and waves in the liquid, coolness rising up his wrist followed by the needles-and-pins of the burn - and then it's in his hand and feeling like he's tearing himself free from it all, he yanks his arm from the tank and drops the key onto the ground.

"Are you all right?" Eriko says, looking at him warily like he's bleeding to death in front of her. She goes to pick up the key, wrapping a fold of her shirt round her hand first.

"Dry it off," Raito says, quietly. "We don't want to short-circuit anything."

Ide can hear himself breathing. At first it's too fast, but as he listens, he feels it sink back to normal. _In. Out. Still alive. _Like _this _was the final test, like now he's proved himself. Maybe it is. They'll get Yumi out, and then they'll get out of here and it will all be over -

_Really? When two other people are dead and you've survived, again? _

They can _fix _it this time - this has got to throw up some leads -

There's a clank, and he looks round to see Eriko gently lifting the bear trap off her daughter's head. Yumi stands very still. There are lines of blood from either corner of her mouth, oozing down towards her jaw. Eriko, shuddering, places the bear trap on the ground, and then whispers, "Let me see..." and tilts Yumi's face slightly, checking the wounds, patting her down for other injuries. Aizawa stands, watches without seeing, teeth gritted.

Now Ide's eyes are adjusting to the dim light, he realises there are photographs all over the walls. He squints at them, trying to ignore the pain in his hand. It's hard to make them out properly, but he thinks he spots Aizawa and his family - the Yagamis - Mogi and Ukita -

Himself, just opening the door to his apartment block. The photographer must have been on the other side of the road - maybe in a parked car. So - what, Jigsaw's been watching all this time? One of Eriko at the shops; Mogi walking up the steps of the NPA headquarters; Raito walking down a blossom-lined path on Tokyo University campus. As if everyone here is just entertainment - as if Jigsaw just checks in with what they're doing to keep himself occupied -

Except that scrawled in red paint along the top of the wall, drips of it spattering the top line of photos, is writing. _NOT WHAT THEY SEEM. _Ide stares at it, feeling again like everyone's watching him, waiting for him to react. No pictures of Matsuda. That would make it too obvious, right? He should be looking, searching for clues, but he doesn't want to - seeing their lives fragmented and pinned up on the wall is making him feel like there really is nowhere to hide, like this will never end -

_Stop it. He's trying to mess with our heads. That's all it is. _

A crackle of static. The TV flickers and that puppet appears on it again. Ide doesn't even find himself that surprised, but he sees Raito twitch, and Eriko clutches at Yumi.

_Well done. If you have made it to this room, at least some of you have faced and defeated your flaws. But two of you will have remained untested, and in order to win your freedom you will have to make another choice."_

Raito's eyes widen; Eriko, still holding Yumi, reaches out to grab Aizawa's hand.

_"Aizawa-san," _that voice carries on, _"You've seen now the consequences of blindly sticking to the same path. It didn't just hurt you, but nearly destroyed your family. Don't pretend you want to hunt me down for any altruistic purpose. It's for revenge, isn't it?_

_"Next to the door are two choices. One of them will give you another piece of the puzzle, but I warn you that knowledge is never gained without cost. Make your choice."_

Ide looks round. The door is in the far corner, below the light bulb. And next to it, in the glow, there are two buttons. He takes a step towards them, then another, feeling like he's dreaming.

One is labelled _Freedom, _the other _Truth. _

Eriko whispers the words, then, shakily, says, "He wants us to pick freedom. That's obvious. If - if we pick truth, something will - he'll kill us -" She takes a step forward as if she's about to press the button herself, then glances back at Aizawa, who is staring numbly ahead, the light from the screen flickering on his face. "For god's sake, it isn't a binding contract! Let's choose freedom and get _out_!"

She's right, of course she's right, and yet - Ide can already see it, the way Aizawa's shoulders are slumping, the bitterness in his face -

"No," he's saying now. "No, if we - if we walk out of here alive, we can't go back. What Ide and I were doing before, it - it won't get results fast enough. I can't... what's happened to you, to Yumi..."

The shadows feel like they're growing darker, like there's just the light bulb and the two buttons and Aizawa's voice, flat and hopeless: "He wins. If we make it out of here, he wins. I'll let it go."

"We can - we can talk about it later," Eriko says, swallowing, and at least she's not going _I told you so, _but it doesn't make Ide feel any better. "Look, I'll choose freedom and we can just _go -_" She's already taking a step forward and it hits Ide that's it, that if he doesn't do something now then -

"What about me?"

Eriko stops, frowns at him. "What _about _you? Ide-san, you're in as much danger as the rest of us."

"That's... that's not what I meant." His voice is shaking, he can't tell if it's with anger or something else. _Look at me, you bastard, just look - _"You. You... give up, you walk away from it... that's great. That's _fine, _you have your reputation as the man who survived two Jigsaw traps, you... and after what's happened to - no one will judge you."

"Ide..." Aizawa begins, weary-sounding like he's humouring a child.

"Don't talk to me like it doesn't matter!" Doesn't Aizawa _get _it? Hasn't he seen what it's like? "I... they'll find... all the - the - you give up on me and - that's it -" He doesn't want to hear it said but might as well make the point, rub it in exactly what Aizawa's considering doing - "I'm screwed -"

"It's not like that," Aizawa says, but he's not even bothering to direct his words to where he knows Ide is, he's just speaking into the dark. "It isn't like the whole investigation will be halted. They'll look into it and they'll find out you were innocent."

"Yeah, because they've done a great job of that so far, haven't they? And you don't think, after six detectives have been put through the mill, that they might not want just to settle for the easiest option and keep their heads down? You don't think they might not charge me just to show they're doing something?"

"That's not the damn point!" Aizawa yells. "He could've killed Yumi - he nearly killed Eriko - Mogi's dead and the Chief and Ukita aren't far off - we can't do this any more!"

"And Jigsaw doesn't know that? Sure, great, why don't we give in to all the killers and lunatics to save our own skins! Doesn't matter if they make _other_ people cut out their own eyes - as long as _we're_ safe that's all that matters!"

"You should talk -" Aizawa throws out the words, his voice cracking - "Isn't that what you thought last time you played one of these games?"

Ide stares at him and at first he actually can't believe he heard right. He thought - he thought Aizawa had understood, at least wasn't hating him for what he'd done. He thought one person, at least, had forgiven him. And... and all the time, Aizawa had been despising him just as much as everyone else -

_Well, of course he would -_

_So stupid - just like Matsuda, just watching and amazed I'm actually falling for it - _

Well, not any more. He's sick of everyone else getting to play the hero and making him the villain. He's sick of trying to do what's right for others. He's lost everything already and for once, just _once - _lied to and screwed over and suspected and hated and - this time he's going to win the game for himself -

He dives forward, so angry he's almost stumbling over his own feet, and slams his hand down on the button marked _Truth._

Eriko is already screaming "_No!_" and she grabs at his arm but already all around them the basement is full of the grinding of machinery. The TV flickers, shows just static for a few seconds, and then, all at once, the white-and-red face of the puppet appears again and a canned cackle echoes round the room.

_"If you want to know the truth, you have to find it yourselves. You hold all the pieces, and you must put them together. The apprentice of mine who belongs to the police has been in the house with you since the start. As I suspect they aren't feeling motivated to search for the truth, I've given you an incentive to co-operate and pool your knowledge. The way out of this room has sealed, and escape will only be possible with the resources my apprentice carries within them. You now have eight minutes until the explosives in the walls of this building activate. I suggest you solve the puzzle - quickly."_

A timer appears on the screens, and starts to tick down. _7:59. 7:58._

"You _idiot _-" Eriko screams, and for a moment Ide thinks she might actually hit him. He swallows, tries to pull his thoughts together and _not _think about how they're going to die, how he's doomed them all, _not _thinking -

He - it means Matsuda, right? It must do - Jigsaw talking about someone who's already dead, it's a typical misdirection - but what _resources_? They already used those two keys -

He's about to suggest to Raito that they try them in this lock anyway but then Aizawa says - coldly and calmly, "All right. The bastard's been in the house with us since the start. It's obviously not Raito, Eriko, or Yumi, and we know Mikami was on his side anyway. So that leaves me, you, Mogi, Ukita, and the Chief. You wanted to solve this, so let's hurry up and do it."

Ide can feel the fury his friend is just keeping back and he wants to say he's sorry, but they don't have time for that. "No - no, it's not -" How the hell can he explain it? He tries to remember what he and Raito discussed before, in that room, in the dark - "Not us. It's Matsuda. He means Matsuda."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Aizawa says, voice rising.

_Get a grip, you can do anything if it means you survive, that's the __**point**__ - _"He set us up. I told you, I said, he kept thinking about it all." _"I suppose some of them deserved it, right?"_ "He kept going on about all the victims, he was questioning it. Then he tried to delay me." _"Hey, you got any plans for the evening?"_ "He was waiting, he - and it was going to be _him, _he was going to survive like me, instead of me and I didn't _know, _all right?" _I__t hurts gripping the weapon with both hands it hurts but he's still pulling the trigger -_ "If I'd fucking known I wouldn't have let him get the jump on me, but I didn't figure it out! I never figure it out!" And the clock counting down and he can feel it, the solution staring him in the face, _laughing -_

"Get a grip!" Aizawa shouts at him. "Just think about something other than what you've done for once!"

"I _am_!" A deep, shaky breath. _In. Out. Still alive_. "_He _thinks so -" He looks round for Raito, who's watching them, actually looking perturbed now like finally something's got to him. "You said - it all made sense..." He sounds so stupid begging a college student for the answers, but Raito's smart, Raito _knew -_

"It was a hypothesis." Raito's looking wary, and though he's clearly making an effort to stay calm, his voice is shaking. "I thought Matsuda-san could have been indoctrinated. He certainly always wanted to do good and didn't always think things through."

"I don't believe it," Aizawa says, and Ide feels sick at how easily the dismissal comes, _oh, Matsuda would never do anything wrong, but __**you -**_ "Besides, he's not _here _-"

"He is," Raito says. "For Ide's trap, he had to find keys in the corpse." He hurries over to the door, fumbling in his pockets: "But they were for the door there. Nothing said anything about a third key." He's trying both keys in the lock, but shakes his head. "If Jigsaw did mean Matsuda-san, then we've... we've failed. Whatever the puzzle was, we didn't solve it."

_6:44. 6:43._

"We're _not _going to die here," Eriko says, wrenching out the words. "Shuichi - Ide-san - you've been thinking about this for weeks. Look, didn't Ukita-san say that - that this spy is the one who killed that Toyama criminal? Wrote the man a letter blackmailing him? And Matsuda-san found it and told the... the wrong person - let's assume he _wasn't _the spy and... and just -"

"If the spy was the one who killed Toyama," Ide says, trying not to look at the numbers ticking away out of the corner of his eye, "then he's been working with Jigsaw since very early on. Toyama was the fourth victim. And..."

_What about Toyama and Shirami? We got nothing from them because of the fire damage. Hell, Amane's body would've been burnt to a crisp... _

_What's special about those victims? Or are you trying to tell me there are two killers?_

"Or... or he wants us to _think _he'd been working with Jigsaw," he says.

The solution staring him in the face...

"What?" Aizawa snaps. "Of course he's working with Jigsaw, that's why we're _here._"

"Not - he is _now, _but Toyama - he was burnt to death and that destroyed most of the evidence. We got _nothing _forensically from him, we didn't even get the tape. The spy wanted us to think Toyama was killed by Jigsaw, so he used fire to cover up anything that wouldn't match Jigsaw's MO. And - and then I _bet _Jigsaw got in touch with him. Forced him - or maybe didn't even have to force him, maybe he was happy to keep helping -"

"Someone who had a motive to kill Toyama?" Aizawa says. "Who'd that be, apart from Amane?"

"If it's a cop, they'd have seen how he got away with those murders. Maybe that pissed them off enough that they decided to kill him and pin it on Jigsaw. Doesn't... it doesn't narrow it down, but..."

"And, what, they killed Shirami too?" Aizawa frowns. "The other one who got burnt to a crisp? And Amane?"

"Wouldn't surprise me if he killed Shirami," Ide says. "Either Jigsaw told him to, or perhaps he thought he'd got away with Toyama's death and he liked being an avenging angel. Amane..."

_I still think we're missing something with Amane_, Aizawa had said...

The Chief, slumped on the ground, groans, draws a breath.

"Amane..." he says, hoarsely. "Amane didn't... Mogi told me... Amane faked her... her trap..."

"What?" Aizawa gasps.

"To meet him. Ji... Jigsaw." The light of the screen glows on the Chief's damp face, but he forces out the words: "He... he killed Toyama. She was grateful... Mikami told Mogi..."

"Right, so _that's _why he targeted her," Ide says. _Another piece of the puzzle. _The clock at the corner of his eye. _5:10. 5:09. _He tries not to look at it. "He knew she'd borrowed his name, as it were, so he got in touch with her, arranged to meet her - hell, perhaps she knew who he was from the start. Mogi said she talked about him loving justice, being young - like she knew -" He tries not to think, _the person who best fits that profile is Matsuda. Matsuda would've been able to get a date with Amane. _Assume Matsuda's innocent, _which makes you guilty -_

"But Amane was burnt to death too," Aizawa says. "I guess he could've wanted to make it match up with what the spy did - keep us guessing - but..." He frowns. "Hang on, why _would _Jigsaw kill her? The spy killed Toyama, but Jigsaw recruited _him. _He co-opted Mikami too. He _likes _having allies. Amane pretty much says she's on his side, and he murders her for it?"

"Perhaps he didn't want a woman assisting him?" Raito says. "Or perhaps he thought she... she was arrogant, taking control of his traps that way? The spy eliminated someone he would have wanted dead himself, but she didn't..."

"Or perhaps," Ide says, and he feels like he's finally waking up after being asleep for weeks, "perhaps it wasn't him. Perhaps it was the spy after all. He... okay, Jigsaw is happy to test his own allies, right? He put Mikami in here, and the spy as well if that video's right. So... so maybe this was a test as well. He... put Amane in touch with the spy, or he gave her some information, and he wanted them to work together. Like he wants us to. And Amane -"

"Amane confronted the spy with what she knew," Aizawa says, nodding, "and he panicked and killed her. He'd have more access to Jigsaw's equipment and methods by now, so there weren't so many differences for us to spot, but he still used fire because he was hoping it would destroy anything he'd missed. Which means she... which means she could have been talking about the _spy, _when she said that to Mogi. She could have been enjoying that she knew something he didn't..."

_3:53. 3:52._

"Someone smart. Someone who thinks a lot about justice. And someone... someone who's her own age," Ide says.

The Chief. Aizawa. Ukita. Mogi. Eriko. Matsuda. Each one of them falling away, and the only person left is...

He turns to stare at Raito.

"What... Ide-san," Raito says, eyes widening, "you can't think it's me."

"You fit." Ide can't tell if he's still thinking straight or if this sounds crazy to everyone else, but Aizawa's frowning, and even the Chief hasn't started protesting at it yet. "You're smart as hell and you're _obviously _so. You care about right and wrong, you want to join the NPA. You're Misa's age, you're good-looking, she'd jump at the chance to go somewhere with you. You... you're not meant to have access to police information but your father does, and you certainly know most of us and how the case is going. And..."

It hits him, suddenly. "And Matsuda liked you. He would have trusted you. And not only that - you're _not _part of the police. I wondered why he didn't tell the Chief about the letter, who he'd have trusted more than him - well, who better than his son, who is officially _not _part of the investigation and surely couldn't have known _anything _about Toyama? He'd have thought you were the one person who _couldn't _be the spy."

"This is ridiculous," Raito says, eyes narrowing. "You've got absolutely no evidence to prove any of that. I know we're in a desperate situation here, but throwing accusations around isn't going to help!"

"All right, how about this?" Ide says. "Mikami seemed devoted to Mogi when they went into that trap. He really seemed to feel he owed him one. And then he just turns on him and kills him for no reason? But maybe what he _did _do was talk about Amane in front of you. And you realised he was going to spill his guts about everything. So you killed them both."

Aizawa and the Chief are both staring, shocked, but they're not arguing - they're not seizing on any obvious holes in the story -

"Dad..." Raito says, "Aizawa-san... you're not really going to let him go on like this, are you? He's already killed one person, he's latching on to me because he's scared -"

The Chief swallows and he whispers, "Raito..." but then he doesn't say anything else. Ide makes himself stop looking. Guilt at what this will do to Raito's father is the last thing he needs.

"In _my _trap," he carries, trying not to think about what Raito's just said, "you were so keen to make me think Matsuda had been the spy, weren't you? You really pushed that. If I hadn't been so -" He remembers the darkness and the stench and the blood, and for a moment he thinks he's going to be sick, but the timer is still counting down and it doesn't _matter - _what matters is - "Jigsaw even _told _me - he said, he said there were a _number of clues - _and I might be closer than I think - and it was _Toyama's _trap in there, that was the one he chose to mock up-"

_2:09. 2:08._

The puppet, smiling at him. Its laugh, its mouth falling open, and carved inside...

"It was the moon. It was a crescent moon."

"No," Raito says. "No, you can't seriously think -"

"Doesn't matter what I think, does it?" Ide walks towards him. _1:58. 1:57. _"You've got the key on you. You give it up, or we all die."

"I haven't!" Raito snarls at him. "You think I'd be keeping it back if I had some way of getting us out? I don't want to die either! Search me if you want, but I haven't got _any _sort of key apart from the ones we got from Matsuda!"

Ide wants to dive across and choke him until he admits it - because he _is _right, he's sure of it, that moon symbol seals it - but he's pretty sure that if Raito had the key, he'd be using it. There'd be bluffing, claims that he was being framed, some clever argument as to who the killer _really _was, maybe even a pretense he _had _picked the key up from Matsuda - but while that door stays locked, Raito's as dead as the rest of them. So - so he must not _know _he has it -

_The resources my apprentice carries within them - _

_Carries __**within **__them - _

Yumi holding the knife -

And the ache in his own side, under his ribs, where he thought he'd cut himself on a nail or something -

"Do you all have a cut - a wound - in your stomach?" he says. "Here - under your ribs?"

If they all say _no - _if it is only him after all -

But Eriko fumbles with her torn blouse, nods; Aizawa says, slowly, "Yes - I can feel -" and Raito puts a hand to the spot under his shirt and goes dead white.

"We were all cut open," Aizawa says, "and... and one of us has the key?"

"No," Raito says. "No, no, don't you -"

"That's got to be it," Eriko says. Unlike the others, she doesn't look horrified. She looks... determined.

Ide reaches over and takes the knife from her. Raito takes a step backwards.

"Don't you dare -" he hisses. "It's _you - _you betrayed Matsuda, you betrayed all of them -"

_1:11. 1:10. There's always a way out. Always a hope you'll win the game. _

"Why do you even think you've worked this out?" Raito says. "You didn't manage the last one, did you? You were so _sure _Matsuda was out to get you... what makes you think you know any better this time?"

_There's always a way out_

_If we don't do something_

_Don't want to die_

And that's it. This is the only chance. If he's wrong, then they're out of time. And he's going to survive. This time, he's going to survive.

He dashes forward and punches Raito as hard as he can in the stomach. Raito doubles over, gasping and retching, and Ide shoves him backwards onto the ground. He dives onto him, but Raito is already scrambling to sit up, kicking out, and Ide can't keep a grip on him and hold the knife at the same time -

Footsteps, and suddenly Eriko's there, throwing herself across Raito, struggling to grip his wrists, her uninjured arm pressed across his throat. "_Hurry up -_" she screams at Ide, and he sees the clock behind her - _0:50 - 0:49 -_

He manages to kneel on top of Raito's legs and then he claws at the guy's shirt - underneath it he sees the thin cut below the ribs, exactly the same place as his own wound. The knife is clammy in his hands, and Raito's screaming and cursing but that's not important, it's almost out of hearing as he grips the knife tighter and slams it into Raito's stomach.

Blood welling up from where the blade meets the skin. Raito screaming, yelling for his father. Ide dragsthe knife down, cuts through the fine stitches that closed the original wound, and then sticks his fingers of his free hand into it. Wet slipperiness and blood oozing down his wrist. God, how deep is the key, what if they can't find it, what if he _is _wrong - Raito manages to half-shake Eriko off and Ide desperately widens the opening with the knife, claws frantically amid the blood -

Hard metal against his fingers -

He wrenches his hand free and in his blood-drenched, glistening fingers there's a key. Eriko snatches it off him and runs for the door. The knife is still under Ide's hand. He grips the handle and - god, he could just wrench it to the left, drag it across the length of Raito's stomach - gut him like a pig - _serve him right - he killed Matsuda - he set me up - he set me up and he was watching all the time and he probably thought it was funny - _

Raito's face is dead white and his teeth are gritted with pain but his eyes are glinting and as their gazes meet, he smiles.

Ide yanks the knife out of him and Raito is already scrambling up, far faster than anyone who's just been stabbed should be. Ide staggers to his feet. Yumi and Aizawa have gone too. _Get out. 0:14. 0:13. _

But the Chief - and Ukita -

Ukita's nearest. Ide flings the knife aside, grabs his colleague and hauls him up - the door's only a few feet away but with someone else's dead weight on you that might as well be miles - _hurry - _

He'll come back for the Chief -

Two more steps - one -

_0:06. 0:05._

Cold night air. His arms and shoulders burning with the effort of supporting Ukita's weight. Stumbling forward. Everything still for a few moments, as if nothing is wrong - as if it's all in his head -

And then the world explodes behind him.

When he opens his eyes, at first there's nothing but more darkness. But then - or maybe later, because time's gone strange - he starts to pick things out. Paler blackness of sky above jagged roofs. The smell of smoke. A low ringing in his ears. He aches all over, feels covered with blood and grit. He's on the ground - he can smell earth and rain - and liquid, like tears but not, more blood, is oozing down his face.

Someone is kneeling next to him. He turns his head, and can just make out Raito's face, ghostly white in the darkness. His breathing's hoarse, and he's got his arms wrapped round his body, shielding the wound.

Their eyes meet again.

Raito smiles, and Ide wishes like hell he had the strength to get up and back away. No one with any sanity left in them smiles like that. Particularly after they've been hacked open for a key and then narrowly escaped being blown to bits.

"I knew you'd do it," Raito says at last.

_Oh, come on. _If he hadn't, one of the others would. Hell, Raito would probably have managed to do it himself if he'd not been panicking.

He opens his mouth to try and say some of this, but his throat's too dry to speak.

"Oh... not that." Raito laughs - sharp breaths. "Not the key. With Matsuda. I told him. I told him, bring someone you trusted. I don't want it just to be us two. I said, how about Ide? _He _seems like someone you can rely on." Indistinct; his breathing's harsh and sharp. "I knew if it was _you, _Matsuda would never leave that building alive." His smile widens. "I just thought you'd like to know."

Ide feels dizzy and sick and the words reshuffle and form themselves into nonsense. As if he can pretend he never heard them.

_You're a liar, _he thinks, or wants to say, _you've always been a liar, _but he can't get the words out.

Raito laughs again: "After all, you risked everyone else's lives just now because you couldn't bear to admit you'd lost." He's scrambling to his feet. _Go after him, _Ide yells at himself, _he's a killer, you need to stop him, _but as he pushes himself up, everything lurches and sends him sprawling again.

"Your father..." he manages to say, because he wants to _hurt_ Raito and this is the only way he's even got a hope of doing so. "You..."

Raito looks down at him, face blank now, firelight glinting in his eyes.

"My father would have understood," he says, softly. "You saw what he did. He'll do anything if it's the right thing to do. Just like me.

"_You - _you just didn't want to die. Pathetic."

His footsteps crunch on wreckage, and he's gone.

_Aizawa rings the doorbell several times, and then thumps on the door, but Ide doesn't answer. He almost gives up - his funeral suit is too crisp, it itches at his neck - but Ide's been looking like death all week, worse and worse as the day of Matsuda's memorial service draws closer, and Aizawa can't just walk away and leave him now. And besides... he's not worried, exactly, but he's... he would like to see that Ide's there, see that he's basically all right. Just to make sure._

_In the end he gets his mobile out and calls the apartment landline. He hears it start ringing, distant, beyond the door. After twenty rings, he hears movement, someone staggering to their feet, and then a clatter as the receiver is, fumblingly, picked up._

_"It's me," he says. "Let me in."_

_Ide is blind drunk. Which isn't entirely surprising, but Aizawa's taken aback by just how much his friend must have had. He doesn't think he's ever seen Ide that out of it before. But he sticks around anyway - Ide's not typically an abusive drunk, and on this occasion he's more numb and still than anything else. Aizawa forces water and coffee on him and then waits, telling himself he's just making sure Ide doesn't manage to choke himself or fall down the stairs. He knows perfectly well he was worried about more than that, but it hasn't happened, so there's no point in thinking about it. _

_By the evening, Ide has moved from drunken bleariness to hungover and wincing every time he blinks. Aizawa itches to say to him __**drinking yourself to death won't help, you know**__, but he keeps his mouth shut. He doesn't have the energy for an argument. Matsuda's funeral tired him out, particularly when the man's father asked him what steps were being taken to hunt Jigsaw down and why there weren't any leads. _

_And besides, there are worse ways of escaping a situation than alcohol. _

_"Do you want something to eat?" he says instead._

_Ide shudders, shakes his head._

_"You... you think I'm being stupid," he says at last, voice just above a whisper._

_"I think getting that drunk is generally pretty stupid."_

_"It's none of your business."_

_Aizawa shrugs. He doesn't want an argument and he doesn't think Ide actually does either. This is just reflex. Or feeling like shit and lashing out at the nearest available person. Whatever, there's no point in reacting to it._

_"Anything changed?" Ide says, coming to sit at the table, resting his head on one hand. _

_"With what?"_

_"The case. Matsuda. What they're... if they're..."_

_He's shaking. Aizawa wonders if he realises it._

_"No," he says. "Still no leads."_

_"They... they wouldn't have wanted me there." Ide indicates Aizawa, his black suit. _

_"It's all right." Which is a stupid comment to make, but what else is he supposed to say?_

_"It's not fucking __**all right**__." Ide snarls it, but his voice cracks. Aizawa goes to get him another glass of water, lets them both pretend it's just a dry throat from alcohol-induced dehydration. From behind him, Ide carries on, "I'd want to see... if it were me, I'd want to see me dead. You haven't even gone off on one. You haven't even said..."_

_"What's the point of yelling at you? It's not like you don't get..." Aizawa nearly says __**how bad this is**__, but decides that probably won't help and switches it to "It's not like you're pretending it was nothing."_

_"I __**know**__ it wasn't nothing," Ide says, like Aizawa accused him anyway. "It's not just about suspension or whatever. It's not just about getting charged for it or everyone thinking I'm Jigsaw or whatever the hell. I wanted..." He swallows. "I wanted him to make it out. I wanted it to be okay."_

_"I know you did."_

_"He didn't deserve it."_

_"Neither of you did," Aizawa says. "That's why we're going to track Jigsaw down and make him pay."_

_Ide smiles, though it looks like the movement hurts him. "Have fun with that." He accepts the glass of water, sips, closes his eyes for a moment. "Anyway..." But then he doesn't say anything else. Fair enough. There's probably not much else to say. _

It's the middle of the next day before they get back to the Suzuki household, where Youko is still being looked after. Aizawa's so tired he thinks he keeps falling asleep without realising; the hum of the car engine constantly blurs in his ears, turns into breathing. Ide, Eriko and Yumi are all silent, have been since they made it to the hospital. Aizawa wants to kid himself they're just tired, that the fact that his wife and daughter aren't shouting at him or crying means that they're basically fine, but he knows it is just kidding himself. Pretending that just because he can't see the damage, it isn't there.

From the back seat, Eriko says to Ide, "This one - with the red door -" and Aizawa feels the car judder to a halt. The slam of the doors makes him think of their journey twenty-four hours earlier, the one where they'd never reached their house. He hears Yumi whimper a little, but Eriko whispers to her, "It's okay... it's going to be okay..."

As Aizawa climbs out of the car, he hears Yumi whisper back, "I'm not... I'm not going to be scared any more..."

"It's all right to be a bit scared," Eriko says, and Aizawa can hear her voice shake a little.

"No," Yumi says. "He... he told me being scared was only... it was like I was locked in. Like the... the thing on me, it was like that. He said I had to... I had to live with being scared... like, I had to be okay with how stuff can just... explode any moment. He knew I'd been... ill and stuff, he wanted to make me get better..."

They're both listening and Aizawa hears Eriko's breath catch in her throat. He wonders if she's as angry as he is. But she only says, "Well, you were very brave. Now, let's go and find Youko -" and he hears them start walking up the path.

"This way," Ide says, next to him.

"How do they look?" Aizawa asks him, keeping his voice low.

"Tired. Battered. But the doctors said the wounds will be fine. Nothing - nothing vital was damaged."

He must know that wasn't what Aizawa meant, but Aizawa suddenly doesn't want to press the issue. He thinks he'll know what the answer is.

He thinks, too, that Ide knows he still means what he said, about walking away. He can't go on, not now. Not when the price would be this high. And perhaps Ide's come to the same conclusion. At any rate, he hasn't mentioned continuing the hunt, despite his own future still being uncertain. The NPA will continue to pursue Jigsaw - and Raito, of course, assuming his wound wasn't fatal - but the two of them won't be part of the search, not now.

Perhaps it's just that Ide knows that choosing _Truth _was too big a gamble. Maybe he's disturbed himself by how easily he chose to risk everyone's lives - Yumi and Eriko's lives - to find more clues. Aizawa certainly _hopes _he's bothered by it. His fury had been white-hot at the time, but now, after being knocked half-conscious by an explosion and then waiting in hospital for hours, it's been exhausted. Better to let things lie. Too many people have died for him to stir up fury at one of the survivors.

Mrs Suzuki's opened the front door, is talking nineteen to the dozen as usual: how terrifying it must have been, how tired they all look. "Now, Youko-chan, don't you tire your mum and dad out. They've been a bit hurt and they're going to need lots of rest, so you be a good girl, all right?"

"Thank you so much," Eriko is saying to her. "I'm so sorry to have put you out, but thank you for taking care of her -"

"Don't worry about that," Mrs Suzuki says. "We had a nice time, didn't we, Youko-chan? And I wasn't on my own the whole time. There's a gentleman lives across the road, he pops in every so often to see how I'm doing. He's a foreigner, but even so he's a good neighbour. I thought we might have had a prowler last night - there was definitely someone wandering about on the street - but he heard them and he came across right away to check I was all right."

Aizawa can feel Ide shifting, obviously keen to get going, and he's just about to follow him back down the path when Mrs Suzuki carries on, "And he was ever so concerned when he heard you had got into a - well, an accident, Aizawa-san. He said to give you all best wishes and he was sure someone as sensible as the two of you would have made all the right choices. And he'd even brought a jigsaw puzzle to do, to keep Youko-chan happy - didn't he, Youko-chan? Kramer-san brought the jigsaw round and we finished it all, didn't we?"

Aizawa feels Eriko press close to him, her fingers digging into his arm; on his other side, Ide has drawn a sharp breath and Aizawa feels him tense.

"It... it can't be..." he whispers. "It... can it?"

Aizawa's willing to bet that it was. He's in no state to believe in coincidences, not now. And wouldn't that be just like the bastard? He'd be fully aware of where Youko was, and he'd want to make sure they knew that - to show them the promise couldn't be an empty one -

And, perhaps, he wanted to make sure his disgraced apprentice didn't do anything unexpected. A prowler, she'd said. That _could _be paranoia, but there's nothing wrong with that, either.

He and Ide can pass the information on - a name, a description - but he's willing to bet the nice neighbour will be long gone by now.

They walk back to the car, silent still, Eriko's hand in his.

"The game's not over," Ide mutters, as they reach it. "That's what he was saying, isn't it?"

"For us it is. He gave us his apprentice - clued us in to the spy - and in return for that, we back off."

"Deal with the devil."

"We've both got an excuse to walk away," Aizawa says. "Don't knock it. At least we -" He thinks of Mogi, of the Chief, and swallows. "Come on. Let's go."

THE END

(A/N: and that's a wrap! Thanks for reading, reviews welcome!)


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